

























Bppletons’ 
Cown ant* Country 
library 

No. 231 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS 


BOOKS BY MAXWELL GRAY. 


The Silence of Dean Maitland. 12mo. Paper, 
50 cents ; cloth, 75 cents. 

“ The story culminates in a scene which is almost unequaled and 
unexampled in fiction. ... As a tale of spiritual struggle, as a mar- 
velously graphic and vital picture of the action and reaction of hu- 
man life, ‘ The Silence of Dean Maitland ’ is a book that is destined 
to an extraordinary recognition and permanent fame in literature.” — 
Boston Traveller. 

“ Of striking power and originality.”— London Guardian. 

The Reproach of Annesley. l2mo. Paper, 
50 cents ; cloth, 75 cents. 

“ Unmistakably a piece of fiction far above the average in artistic 
merit.”— Boston Beacon. 

“Its strength and finish, firm delineation of character, beauty of 
description, and purity of ideal, rank it among the healthful, refining 
works of fiction.” — Chicago Tribune. 

In the Heart of the Storm. 12mo. Paper, 50 
cents ; cloth, 75 cents. 

“ Admirably told from beginning to end.” — New York Journal of 
Commerce. 

“It will appeal to the reader’s conscience as well as to his curi- 
osity, will elicit his thorough respect, and will give him food for 
serious thought.” — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 

An Innocent Impostor, and Other Stories. 

12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. 

“ Graceful in form and highly entertaining.” — N. Y. Times. 
“These are all written with the pen of a literary artist who is 
equally at home in depicting both the pathetic and amusing features 
of human existence.”— Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 

A Costly Freak. 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. 

“ The author has the descriptive and narrative gift in large meas- 
ure. The story is admirably written, and the interest never for a 
moment lags.” — Philadelphia Press. 

“A novel of much more than ordinary interest.”— Boston Adver- 
tiser. 

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, New York. 



SWEETHEARTS 
AND FRIENDS 

A NOVEL 


BY 

MAXWELL.- GRAY 


AUTHOR OF 

THE SILENCE OF DEAN MAITLAND, A COSTLY FREAK, 



Q^\Ct OF 


DEC 6 1897 


St^er of 




TWO COPIES RECEIVE! 


NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1897 





3480 


Copyright, 1897, 

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 







SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


CHAPTER I. 

“ For is it a grief to you that I have part, 

Being woman merely, in your male might and deeds 
Done by main strength? Yet in my body is throned 
As great a heart, and in my spirit, O men, 

I have not less of godlike . . . . ” 

Atalanta in Calydott. 

One of the most unpromising places for a 
pilgrim in search of the beautiful is Fulham Road; 
yet even that sordid spot is visited by the smiles 
of heaven, the holy looks of stars, the fairy 
pageant of cloudland. And facing westwards, a 
turn in this dingy street to the right offers a 
vista ending in a gray and graceful spire, sup- 
ported by angels’ outspread pinions, rising above 
green billows of trees. The spire, soft and aerial 
in the distance, is led up to by a perspective of 
houses, stuccoed and unlovely, but veiled and 
beautified by broken rows of light-foliaged trees 
suggesting woodland vistas. 

Very quiet is the wide, forestlike thorough- 
fare leading to the tree-girdled church in the 


2 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


square; there, instead of the rabbit with white 
whisking tail, the stray dog or the persecuted 
town cat darts across the path; now and then 
a man in a polished top hat, a pair of ladies in 
dainty shoes pass along the pavement, an occa- 
sional carriage rolls by. In Angel Road, half- 
way between Fulham Road and the tree-embow- 
ered church, is a house, in whose inmates the 
reader is requested to take a special interest 
out of pure courtesy. This house is — Num- 
ber Nine. 

One mellow, golden afternoon in October, a 
time when the southing sun, as if relenting in 
the moment of departure, turns a lingering, lov- 
ing gaze backwards, the sunshine lay warm on 
pavement, housetop, and spire, wrapping the thin- 
leaved limes in golden lustre; masses of cumulus 
clouds rose like celestial Alps on a pale sky, their 
opalescent tints brightening to rose at the sum- 
mits and shading imperceptibly into gray be- 
neath their aerial bases. The golden lustre 
poured into Number Nine through the back 
drawing-room window, framed and half hidden 
by a Virginian creeper burning in autumn glory. 
Some acacias stood in shadow, delicate and im- 
movable in the still air, before the front window. 
In this room tea was being taken by several ladies 
fatigued by shopping, one of whom, Mrs. Lang- 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


3 


ton, was looking at a roll of shining silk that her 
daughter held before her critical gaze. She was 
the mistress of the house and mother of many 
daughters. 

“ It is too cheap. It looks well enough in this 
light, but hold it before the window. It won’t 
wear,” she said. 

“ Well,” replied Georgie, “ who wants it to 
wear? In six months it will be as antiquated 
as if it had come out of the ark.” 

“ I agree with Georgie,” said a young lady 
visitor. “ I found thirteen old-fashioned cos- 
tumes of mine in a closet yesterday, all new since 
the spring. Now what is one to do with thir- 
teen costumes as good as new? I don’t like to 
burn them all.” 

“ My dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Langton, “ why 
when I was a girl — and we had almost as much 
pin-money then as I have for housekeeping 
now — a dress lasted us, a good silk, two or three 
years. My daughters make their own dresses, 
else we could not manage.” 

“ We like dressmaking,” Georgie said, “ all 
but Amy; she hates it.” 

“ Poor dear Amy is such a trial,” lamented 
her mother. 

“ A temper? ” asked Mrs. Marshall. “ A 
little mannish? ” 


4 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“No; she is always thinking, or wanting to 
do something.” 

“ Girls never talked of what they ought to 
do in my day,” Mrs. Marshall said; “they 
did it.” 

“ I used to want girls because I thought they 
would give no trouble. But now ” An ex- 

pressive silence veiled Mrs. Langton’s grief. 

“ You will soon be out of your trouble,” said 
Mrs. Marshall cheerfully. “ In a couple of years 
they will all be married. Come, Nettie, we have 
another call to make. Love to naughty Amy. 
Good-bye.” 

“ If Amy would but give up thinking,” said 
her mother, examining a letter brought in re- 
sponse to the postman’s knock, and addressed 
in a firm masculine hand to Miss Amy Langton. 
“ What good can possibly come to a girl who 
thinks? We never thought of thinking when I 
was young.” 

“ But, mother dear, people were not in earnest 
then,” said Grace, “the. Church was only just 
awakening from her long sleep.” 

“ I wish it had never waked,” replied Mrs. 
Langton. “ People did well enough when it was 
asleep. People never had any doubts then, ex- 
cept, of course, a few Atheists; there were no 
‘ good ’ infidels; it is more consistent in them to 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


5 


be wicked. People were not ashamed of being 
comfortable in church. One was not expected 
to be jostled about in one’s pew by the common 
people, and it was not thought so difficult to get 
to heaven. This thinking turns everything up- 
side down.” 

“ But, mamma, the Church ” 

“ My dear Grace, I wish you would but read 
your Bible, mend your things, and keep up your 
accomplishments, instead of wanting to ‘ do’ 
things. No, dears. The writing is not a man’s, 
though masculine. Your sister has no male cor- 
respondents. Where can Amy be? ” 

Naughty Amy was safe in the solitude of the 
room she shared with Georgie, the sister who 
had least in common with her, reading a big 
book illustrated by diagrams of the human form, 
while she jotted notes in a manuscript volume. 
Hearing herself called, and Georgie’s light step 
on the stair, she grasped ink-bottle and note- 
book in one hand, the big volume in the other, 
and fled into a closet, in which dresses hung; 
there she remained until Georgie had satisfied her- 
self that the room was empty. Then she emerged 
from her hiding place, looked and listened for 
a few minutes, stole to the bedroom door, closed 
it softly, and sat down again to her books and 
notes. But alas! ink-bottles can not be carried 


6 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


wrong side upwards with impunity; this had dis- 
charged its contents in a black, sinuous course 
over notes, books, and Amy’s dress, and thence 
in a thin dotted line to the closet door and back 
again to the table by the window. 

“ And such a nice clear time before me, and 
I might have studied my brother’s skeleton!” 
she sighed, trying to sponge away the ink 
stains. In the midst of which labours came a 
knock at the door, and Grace entered with the 
thick letter. 

“ My dear Amy! what will mamma say? 
Another ink-bottle upset?” 

“ What can I do, Grace? ” she replied. “ I 
can only read when I hide. Why waste my life 
helping others to waste theirs? ” 

“ Poor little thing! I have brought you a 
letter, but I am afraid the letter must wait till 
after dinner to be read, unless the boys should 
be late,” Grace said gently. “ You will scarcely 
be ready in time. Get ready, dear, I will manage 
the ink.” 

But “ the* boys ” were early; when the sis- 
ters went down to the drawing-room, Amy 
with the thick letter in her hand, they found 
Cecil and Julius standing on the hearthrug and 
a stranger sitting on the end of a couch by Mrs. 
Langton. Cecil was a tall, fair, handsome man 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


7 


of four-and-twenty, a clerk in a Government of- 
fice, with a conviction that the universe was 
planned for his personal benefit; Julius was a 
merry-faced lad of twenty-one, a medical student, 
with none. 

“ My dears,” said Mrs. Langton, as the 
stranger rose on their entrance, “ you remember 
Mr. Lester, Vivian Lester, at Baron’s Cleeve? ” 

They remembered him very well. The Im- 
maculate Lester was one name by which this 
young man was well known to the family, “ That 
beastly prig ” another. Tall, slim, knightly look- 
ing, with large melancholy dark eyes, more man- 
ner than is usual, and a face not devoid of intelli- 
gence the Immaculate, with all his virtues, was 
not disliked even by his own sex. An only child, 
early left an orphan, and now at twenty-four his 
own master, and that of a small estate near 
Baron’s Cleeve, Mr. Lester, of Croft Hall and 
the Middle Temple, was an eminently desirable 
acquaintance for a family of daughters. 

“ I remember Mr. Lester a boy on a pony at 
Baron’s Cleeve,” Georgie replied. “ Amy was a 
dot in pinafores.” 

He turned to Amy and saw an awkward, 
shy girl, whose tumbled dress looked as if it had 
been pitchforked on her shoulders, she had red, 
though well-formed hands, and hair that seemed 


8 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


as if a touch would bring it down. She had beau- 
tiful eyes of the deepest blue, with long curling 
lashes, a firm pure tint, resolute lips, and the 
white even teeth of amiability and health; a face 
that should have been pleasing. But it was not 
the style of countenance the Immaculate ad- 
mired; there was a want of finish and repose, a 
look of expectancy and eager intelligence that 
he thought unbecoming in a woman. The Im- 
maculate’s views on women were immense. 

Georgie was a lovely girl, with gold hair, light 
blue eyes, slight, rounded figure, and graceful 
manner. Amy keenly and critically scrutinized 
Lester, thinking to read his character at a glance. 
“ A manly man,” she thought, “ handsome, sim- 
ple-hearted, and intelligent, but he evidently 
disapproves of and looks down upon me.” 
But this was unjust; every feminine creature, 
even when erring, was to him an object of ven- 
eration. 

At dinner, Lester, who liked ladies to dine 
on air and sentiment, was surprised to hear Cecil 
say, when carving, “ Give that to Miss Amy, there 
is too much for any one else”; and horrified 
to see that she took it with philosophic calm, 
and dispatched it without emotion, until Cecil 
laughed. 

“ Well, Amy,” he said, “ I really thought that 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


9 


even you would have been staggered by that”; 
when she turned crimson and hung her head. 

“You ought to be proud of her appetite,” 
Julius said. “It indicates health; besides she’s 
growing. Don’t mind him, my dear girl, take 
some more beef; it will do you good.” 

“ My dear,” Mrs Langton began to Amy with 
a view to changing the subject, “ I was so sorry 
that you were out this afternoon when the Mar- 
shalls called. Such delightful people! ” 

“ I was not out, mother,” replied Amy. 

“ Not out? then where were you? ” Georgie 
laughed. “ The little puss was hiding in the 
closet, ink and all,” she said. 

“ I am distressed, Amy,” said Mrs. Langton 
in a low tone, and fluttering her cap strings 
with vexation. “ That you will not see people 
is bad enough, but when it comes to decep- 
tion ” 

“ Mother, it was no deception. If Georgie 
had found me I should have been obliged to see 
the Marshalls; as it was, I avoided them without 
rudeness.” 

The Immaculate, though much interested in 
Grace’s conversation with Cecil and himself, 
heard Amy’s, and it made him very sad. 

When the ladies reached the drawing-room, 
Amy put herself in a remote corner, lighting a 


10 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


taper on a table near, and read the long delayed 
letter, which ran thus: 

Windermere, Oct., 187 — . 

My darling Amy — I have the most wonder- 
ful piece of news to send you. You remember 
my poor grandfather’s death? Well, the poor 
dear old man relented, and left us — Lucius and 
me — each £10,000. Imagine your Louie an heir- 
ess! You can guess what is going to happen 
now that I am free. Of course I shall carry out 
my long-cherished plan of studying medicine. 
Miss Sterne, as might have been predicted, can 
not imagine how I can renounce my “ beautiful 
calling ” of teaching girls to do nothing and shut 
their eyes to the realities of life. Still, I renounce 
the only career till quite recently open to women. 
I must remain here till the Christmas holidays, 
when I shall go to town and study at the new 
school of medicine for women. I shall live in 
apartments near. Till when 

Amy looked up to see her brothers and the 
Immaculate enter, and put her half-read letter 
once more in her pocket, her mind full of her 
friend’s good fortune and audacity, when an idea 
suddenly flushed her face crimson. Why not 
follow her friend’s example? She had been 
studying anatomy with a view to making her 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. II 

geological studies more complete; also chemis- 
try and physiology. Why not turn these studies 
to practical account? Why not become a useful 
member of society? Why not cut the Gordian 
knot by leaving that overflowing house of daugh- 
ters, in which she was an anomaly and super- 
fluity? She was so engrossed by these reflec- 
tions that she did not observe the Immaculate 
standing patiently before her with a cup of tea. 

“Oh, I beg pardon!” she exclaimed, start- 
ing from her dreams, “ but such a splendid idea 
has just come into my head.” 

“ Can you sweeten your tea with ideas? ” he 
asked. “ That a girl should be so brusque! ” he 
sighed. 

“ I could with this, it is so very sweet; but 
I don’t like sweet tea, thanks.” She looked so 
bright and full of pleasure that he was inter- 
ested, and took a seat by her. Perhaps the blue- 
stocking was only an affectation; she was young. 

“ I wonder if you could sweeten my tea with 
some of that superabundant sweetness, Miss 
Amy? ” he asked, looking as beautiful as the day, 
while Georgie played a waltz on the piano. 

“ I wish I could, but perhaps you know that 
one man’s meat is another man’s poison.” 

“ Still, some human beings have meats in com- 


mon. 


12 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ I am afraid,” she thought, “ that you and I 
are not those human beings.” “Oh, I say!” 
she cried, starting at a sudden thumping and 
struggling at the door. “ Good gracious! ” 

“ By Jove!” cried her brothers, “what has the 
creature got? ” 

Georgie’s music was silenced, the door burst 
open, and a large retriever puppy belonging to 
Julius rushed in, rolling something between his 
forepaws heavily over the floor. 

“Down, Jack! down!” cried Cecil. “Drop 
it, sir! drop it! ” 

A kind of bowl rolled to Cecil’s feet. He # 
picked it up with a suppressed smile and held 
it aloft. Amy ran forward and took it eagerly, 
crying in a tone partly injured, partly satisfied, 

“ Why, it’s my skull! I can’t think how the dog 
got it,” she added. “ I put it under my pillow 
myself.” 

“ I tell you what, Amy,” said Cecil angrily, 

“ if this thing turns up any more, I’ll smash it to 
atoms.” 

The Immaculate was overcome. Was this 
girl a Valkyr? he asked himself, as he listened 
to a discussion of Amy’s anatomical studies with 
a shocked face. 

0 

“ I say, Amy,” said Julius, who had returned 
from tying up the retriever, “ it’s time you stowed 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


13 


all that nonsense of learning anatomy. As if a 
girl could learn anatomy.” 

“Why not?” she demanded, on her mettle. 
“ I know a girl who wrote an anatomical paper 
for a science journal.” 

“ Some old hag in spectacles cribbed it all 
out of a book.” 

“ Twenty-four and with pretty eyes. She’s 
coming to town to study to be a surgeon at 
Christmas.” 

“ She may study,” replied Julius. “ There’s 
not a professor at St. Scalpel’s who hasn’t sworn 
to give up his place before he will examine a 
woman.” 

“ Amy,” said Mrs. Langton, “ where did you 
pick up this dreadful person? ” 

“ Mother, it is Louisa Stanley.” 

“ That English governess who has been the 
ruin of you? ” 

“ She is my best friend. I like her better 
than anybody in the world! ” cried Amy. 

The Immaculate was still more shocked; he 
raised his dark and melancholy eyes, and tried to 
turn the subject. “ Have you seen Mr. Tenny- 
son’s new drama, Mrs. Langton? ” he asked. 

Of course she had; and a discussion on the 
poet arose, in which said Julius with acerbity, 

“ Fancy Elaine walking the hospitals! ” 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


14 


“ Of course she would have fainted at the 
sight of a wounded man,” returned Amy scorn- 
fully. 

“ N-no; she would not have fainted,” said 
Lester, with confusion. 

“ Yes, it is a nice picture,” Amy commented, 
turning to an engraving in the illustrated Idylls 
Cecil was showing, representing Elaine extract- 
ing the spear from Lancelot’s side. “ Lancelot 
looks so grateful. They were used to women 
doctors in those days.” 

“ Rude savage times,” said the Immaculate 
crossly, to Amy’s enjoyment. 

“ Still the times of chivalry; of the apotheosis 
of woman,” Grace added. “ Ah! If the days of 
chivalry were not gone by! ” 

“ They are not gone by,” replied the Immac- 
ulate vigorously. “ They will never go by 
while ” 

“ Quixote Lester is alive and kicking,” Julius 
put in. 

The Immaculate smiled mournfully. He 
never resented chaff, and was capable of 
laughing at himself, so that his virtues were en- 
durable. 

“ Ah, but chivalry is gone by, Julius,” Amy 
said. “ Sir Philip Sidney is scarcely ever seen 
riding in the parks now, Una never walks in 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 1 5 

Kensington Gardens with her milk-white 
lamb ” 

“ And the gentle lady wedded to the Moor 
is too busy with anatomy to listen to Othello’s 
stirring tales,” added Lester. 

“ Hear! hear! ” cried Cecil. “ Look here, 
Lester, you know what everybody ought to 
be and do. Let us have your ideal of a wo- 
man.” 

“ Drive on, old chap,” added Julius. “ A be- 
ing ” 

“ With a big B,” Georgie put in, “ and no 
views ” 

“ Miss Grace will tell us,” said the Immacu- 
late with his accustomed gallantry. “ Those who 
live ideals can best paint them.” 

“Mr. Lester!” cried Grace, crimson, “how 
can you? I can’t! ” 

“ Well,” began Lester, “ the — ideal — woman 
is a being — whose weakness is her strength, in 
whom feeling replaces intellect, meekness and 
refinement power, who — should be a rest to her 
husband by her freedom from toil, a strength to 
him by the appeal of her weakness, a joy to him 
by her freedom from sorrow.” 

“ And have no relations, no pity, and ten 
thousand a year,” added Amy, with a derisive 
laugh, shared by Georgie. 


l6 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

“ And only speak when spoken to,” added 
Cecil severely. “Well done, Lester!” 

“ Thank you, Mr. Lester,” said Mrs. Lang- 
ton. “ Nothing can be juster or more desirable 
than the picture you have drawn of an ideal 


woman. 


CHAPTER II. 


“ The stars of midnight shall be dear 
To her ; and she shall lean her ear 
In many a secret place 
Where rivulets dance their wayward round. 

And beauty born of murmuring sound 
Shall pass into her face.” 

When Amy Langton at the age of eighteen 
left White How, a great rambling house over 
beautiful Windermere, she was supposed to have 
completed her education at that finishing school. 
But she thought that, like that of her brothers 
at the same age, her real education was just about 
to begin. She had been very happy in the bare, 
bleak house on the hill, looking across the clear, 
brown lake and lovely Belle Isle, that was russet- 
brown in winter, of every colour that was tender 
and soft in spring, green in summer, rich and 
vivid in autumn, reflected in the lucid wave. The 
windows had views of brown and purple hills, 
partly clad with pine, rising above waterside 
meadows, of the bare peaks of Langdale Pikes, 
and the dim, mountainous lake-head at Amble- 

side; westwards the lake wound away like a 
17 


1 8 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

broad river among the mountains. There, her 
nerves braced by exhilarating mountain air, her 
spirit fed daily by the stern and lofty beauty of 
fell and lake, body and mind developed, the for- 
mer growing tall, agile, clear-skinned and bright- 
eyed; the latter eager, acute, and avid of ideas; 
she consumed with equal readiness and satisfac- 
tion the hearty north-country fare on the boun- 
tiful table furnished for these girls in the early 
seventies, and such intellectual food as was at- 
tainable there as well. 

A joy to those who taught what she thought 
worth teaching, Amy Langton was a trial to the 
music-master. She flatly refused to practise, 
saying she had wasted time enough on an art for 
which she had no talent or desire, till at last the 
wearied man requested that she might no longer 
attend his lessons. But Miss Langton was a 
great joy to the pastry cook, whom the girls vis- 
ited on Saturdays, and to her school-fellows, be- 
ing always in good health, good spirits and tem- 
per, and ready to help lazy girls. Yet she was 
not a model pupil, though so quick and teach- 
able in class; she was always breaking rules and 
crockery, upsetting ink, gravity, and teachers* 
tempers. There were many rules, mostly petty, 
always irritating. No moment by day or night 
escaped the network of tiny restrictions; it was 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


19 


forbidden to walk in the carriage drive, to lin- 
ger by the front terrace walls, to walk arm-in- 
arm, to run through hall and corridor, to speak 
to a servant; to go out alone was never dreamt 
of. There was not a rule unbroken by Amy 
Langton; some rules had to be invented ex- 
pressly to curb this lively damsel’s exuberant 
spirits. 

One Saturday in May, a time so delicious in 
the lake country, when the varied foliage of the 
woods presents its greatest variety, the school 
rowed across the lake and moored their boats 
on the opposite shore, where they dispersed in 
the woods to find lilies of the valley and other 
flowers of the season in lakeland. Miss Sterne, 
who had nearly accomplished the years allotted 
to man, accompanied her pupils on water expedi- 
tions, so that if they went to the bottom she 
might escape the reproaches of bereaved parents. 
Comfortably seated on a camp-stool in a shady 
nook, the head of the school enjoyed the ex- 
quisite prospect before her, the lake shining in 
the sun, purpling mountains reflected in its still 
surface, whispering leaves overhead — and envied 
the young lovers drifting past in a pair-oared 
skiff. At seventy single blessedness has draw- 
backs. Unknown flowers and plants found by 
the girls were brought to her for her to name, 


20 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


else her solitude was unbroken. The young head 
governess withdrew into a little cove beneath 
some rocks by the waterside, listening to the tiny 
wash of waves over pebbles at her feet. The 
girls’ light dresses fluttering in and put of the 
trees were just visible to her, their clear voices 
calling one to another just audible. Made- 
moiselle was on guard by the shore; Miss Sterne 
watched above; all was safe; she opened a book 
and was lost in it till a quick step over the peb- 
bles sounded, and a thin voice cried, “ Miss Stan- 
ley! ” Fatal, too frequent appellation! Gov- 
ernesses soon learn to hate their own names. 
She looked up at the lanky figure of a girl of 
barely seventeen, standing shy and awkward be- 
fore her. 

“ You gave me back my English composition 
last night,” the girl said, colouring deeply and 
speaking abruptly. 

Miss Stanley’s delicate face showed impa- 
tience repressed. “Yes, Amy, I gave you a 
Very Good. It is the best composition you ever 
sent in.” 

“ Thank you. But I am afraid I did wrong. 
There — was — this — ” holding out a paper, “ in 
it folded up. First — I must have thought it 
was meant for me, seeing your handwriting — 
and, before I knew, I had read half — then 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


21 


somehow I was obliged to go on to the 
end.” 

Amy’s cheeks grew redder and redder, Louisa 
flushed when she took the paper, and, having 
glanced at it, laughed. “ Never mind,” she said, 
hoping to be left in peace. “ It is nothing per- 
sonal.” 

But Miss Amy must needs burst into tears. 
“ I am so sorry,” she said. “ I never thought of 
it till I had finished reading.” 

“For pity’s sake, don’t cry. It is only a 
translation from Homer. Had it been anything 
personal, instinct would have told you not to 
read. No, it was not dishonourable. Silly of 
me to leave the paper. Come and sit by me. 
Let us talk of something else.” 

The girl looked up through tears at the 
clever young face and wistful eyes with sudden 
interest. “ How clever and kind you are! ” she 
cried. “ How did you learn Greek? ” 

Wheti she heard that it was done by gram- 
mars and lexicons without any help, she threw 
herself, like a long-legged boy, on the mossed 
ground before Louisa with a great “Oh!” of 
wonder and admiration. 

“ Let me learn Greek, Miss Stanley. We 
learn in school such an awful lot of humbug. 
Greek is not humbug.” 


22 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“You shall learn Greek; I will teach you 
— at least what I know. But we shall have 
to get up before the bell these bright morn- 
ings.” 

“ It’s a shame to take advantage of you; you 
have such a lot to do.” 

“ Never mind; it will drive home what I have 
learnt already.” 

“ You seem to know everything.” 

“ I seem to know nothing.” 

“ Why do you want to learn? Surely you 
have enough to do here; and we often give so 
much unnecessary trouble.” 

“ I want to know. I want to live, not vege- 
tate. I want to be useful, and I want to make 
the fullest and best use of my .talents. I want 
to make a career,” Louisa replied, dreamily gaz- 
ing over the purple hills. 

“ You are the most extraordinary person I 
ever met! ” cried Amy. 

“ In your long life, Amy? — The word talent 
comes from the parable.” 

“ Have I any talent? ” 

“ Talent enough, but no ambition, no indus- 
try. Your wits are far beyond any girl’s at 
White How.” 

“ Well, they need be. But what is the good? 
Next year I shall go home and spend my life 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


23 


like Grace and Georgie, going to parties, receiv- 
ing callers, shopping, and making clothes. If 
I were a man, or had to do something for a 
living! I wish to goodness I was obliged to 
work.” 

“ And yet I am not satisfied, though I enjoy 
these privileges.” 

“ You don’t like teaching? Well, neither 
should I, especially unruly girls like us.” 

“ I have not the gift of teaching. Besides, 
we are not teaching you the right things in the 
right way.” 

“ Then why don’t you set to work and do 
it?” 

“ Firstly, I am only a helper here. Secondly, 
parents would never send their girls to us if I 
did. Well, you shall learn Greek, and you shall, 
even if you are obliged to do a great deal of vis- 
iting and dressmaking, at least keep some corner 
of your life for better things. But duty goes 
first.” 

“ Life seems a muddle; everything is such 
rot ! ” cried Amy, making ducks and drakes with 
flat pebbles over the pellucid water. “ I don’t 
want to come out. Boys don’t come out. Miss 
Stanley, what would you do if you were not a 
governess? ” 

“ Take up some special branch of science or 


24 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


literature. I would have a profession; I should 
like to be a surgeon.” 

“Splendid! But women can’t.” 

“Why not? Ah, there’s the recall! What 
a bore! ” 

There was no help for it. They had to rise 
and make their way to the landing-place, where 
girls swarmed round the boats, handing in 
cushions, books, luncheon, flowers, and plants. 
Heads were counted, places and oars assigned, 
in each boat, the signal for starting given, and 
they pushed off over the sunny waters, making 
the shadows of the fells tremble in their wake. 
They rowed among fairylike islets, crowned with 
dark rocks and trees, carpeted with moss and 
flowers. A pair of swans followed them, bend- 
ing their beautiful necks to take biscuits the girls 
threw, and making sudden sweeps after some 
morsel carried away by the water. Amy, bend- 
ing easily to the light oars, pulled a noble stroke; 
it was difficult to pair her with any girl; she 
watched Langdale Pikes growing glorious in 
. clouds of molten gold, High Street and Coniston 
gathering purple shadows about them, Ambleside 
fading into indistinct rose-mists, while Wray 
Castle stood out gray and solitary, like some 
venerable relic of feudal splendour, and always 
she was thinking of this new stimulating notion 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


25 


that women might be doctors. Pleasure boats 
flitted by in shadow and sunlight, a little steamer 
dashed hastily along, leaving a silver furrow be- 
hind it. The girls sang, “ 0 Dolce Napoli, 0 suol 
beato ” and “ Row, Brothers, Row, the Stream 
runs Fast,” to the light plash of oars, one boat 
answering the other by turns, till they reached 
Bowers Bay, where difficult navigation com- 
pelled them to break off as they wound among 
numerous little barks. 

Amy’s place was by Louisa as their croco- 
dile formation wound through the steep street, 
past heavy stone houses pitched here and there 
as if at random. 

“ Miss Stanley, is it unfeminine to know 
much?” she asked. 

“ Was Lady Jane Grey unfeminine? or Eliza- 
beth Herschel? or Mary Somerville? or Vittoria 
Colonna? ” 

“ But strong-minded females, Women’s 
Rights women, and all those, aren’t they rather 
horrid? ” 

“ If they are horrid, it is not because they 
know too much, but too little. One side of their 
nature is cultivated to the detriment of the other. 
They have been instructed, but not educated, not 
drawn out. But revolutions are not made with 
rose-water.” 


2 6 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ Miss Stanley,” Amy flushed hotly and 
paused. 

“Well?” 

“ Don’t men hate learned women? ” 

“ Do they? What if they do? ” 

“ Only, I should not like men to hate me. 
I shouldn’t like to be an old maid,” she blurted 
out, growing redder and redder. 

“ Then don’t be a young owl. Knowing 
Greek will not unfit a girl to be a wife. Oh! 
my dear Amy, half the misery of life comes 
from wives knowing nothing that interests hus- 
bands.” 

“ You don’t think it silly, then, to think of 
being married? ” 

“Young women ought to think seriously of 
marriage. To think of nothing else, like some 
of these girls, is idiotic.” 

“ I begin to love you, Miss Stanley. I think 
I always liked you, though you are a governess. 
This sweet Greek! Pity it’s Sunday to-mor- 
row.” 

Tea at White How was a noble function, the 
only drawback to which was its brevity. Girls 
rose hungry from table at the signal for grace, 
purely because they had not had time to satisfy 
the regal appetites they acquired in bracing 
mountain air, appetites unspoiled by excess or 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


27 


unwholesome food, and fostered by regular hours 
and constant occupation. The table, ringed 
round by rosy girl faces, was pleasant to behold. 
The teapot was supplemented by terra-cotta jars 
of water; no excess in that pernicious and se- 
ductive cup was therefore possible. A noble 
ham, brown loaves, piles of oat cake, glasses of 
honey, treacle and jam, pickled char, Eccles 
cakes, apple cakes, fresh sweet butter and rye 
bread, all pleased girlish palates, all vanished 
swiftly and silently. The business before them 
was far too serious to admit of the levity of con- 
versation, which was further hampered by being 
held in French. 

“ Passes le sel, s’il vous plait.” 

“ En voulez-vous encore ?” 

“ Merci.” Such was the exciting and pleasing 
tenor of this table-talk. There was, in conse- 
quence, more time for reflection, and also for 
enjoying beauty through the large, open win- 
dows which looked over the little town, the 
square gray tower and the placid lake lying be- 
neath surrounding mountains, high above which 
Langdale Pikes rose darkly against a rose-flushed 
sky. Tea finished, the girls strolled in the garden, 
or sat in the veranda under the eye — they were 
always under some eye — of Mademoiselle. Then, 
in an upper chamber, known as the music-room, 


28 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


the scene of many conflicts with the music-mas- 
ter, the first delightful Greek lesson was given 
by an open window. Happy hour, happy, eager 
pupil, happy teacher! Lake and mountains 
changing in the setting sun, long-lingering 
northern afterglow shedding pale lustre over 
dark shoulders of the fells, a wan, white star 
trembling into lucid gold-green above the hill, 
were mingled with the fascination of those novel 
characters, henceforth to be friends for life, 
Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. A blackbird sang in 
fresh-leaved woods below, till orange points 
gleamed from houses on the margin of the lake, 
and a steamer’s green light played on the still 
wave, when the last load of passengers was dis- 
charged on the quay. The Greek lesson over, 
and light gone, teacher and pupil sat talking 
with young enthusiasm in the long twilight, till 
the prayer-bell rang. Every character in that 
curious, interesting alphabet, every inflection of 
the first noun learnt that night, sank deeply, 
enchantingly in the scholar’s memory, and ever 
after recalled the charms of that pleasant twi- 
light hour, the blackbird’s flute notes, the steam- 
er’s throb in the water and the sound of her bell, 
as well as the deep and romantic affection for 
the teacher that sprang then in her pupil’s heart. 
Louisa’s gentle manner and soft Southern accent 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


2 9 


was the model constantly held before the 
school; though not, strictly speaking, pretty, 
she suggested beauty: she was popular, ruled 
firmly, entered into sports, and knew how not to 
see trifles. Mademoiselle was afraid of La Gra- 
cieuse. Miss Sterne, herself an accomplished 
woman, had a certain awe of her learning, 
mingled with affection, for “ La Gracieuse,” as 
the girls called Louisa, was exceedingly clever 
and learned. It was whispered that she spoke 
Sanscrit, and had refused the hand of an Oxford 
professor in faultless Greek. She was particular 
about the fit of her clothes and the harmony of 
her colours; she never wore bad gloves. This 
redeeming weakness gave her more power over 
her girl scholars than all the virtues and talents 
put together. She was the only daughter of an 
Oxford Don, who, renouncing his celibate fel- 
lowship for a country benefice, had married late 
in life a lady no longer young, and died ten 
years later, after a year’s widowhood, leaving 
just enough property to bring up and educate 
his son and daughter, transmitting to the latter 
a taste for study and a well-developed active 
brain; to the former, now in the army, little 
but his name. Thus, having so few natural ties, 
La Gracieuse was the more ready to respond to 
the adoring affection Amy Langton lavished 


30 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


upon her; at twenty-three she was scarcely older 
in heart than Amy at seventeen. She had two 
strong ruling ideas — the emancipation of her sex 
from ignorance, frivolity, prejudice, and petty 
tyranny, and a desire to console and heal. The 
latter, together with a strong natural bent 
towards natural science, made her wish to be 
a physician and surgeon. Amy, with more im- 
agination, had a similar leaning towards science. 
She had been a troublesome child, who cut open 
bellows to see where the wind came from, and 
worried her elders for a reason for everything. 
A desire to heal, and a motherliness that pre- 
served her dolls from the destruction that befel 
toys and furniture at her hands, bent her 
thoughts later to the study and practice of 
medicine. 

After the happy Greek lesson, associated 
ever after with delicate beryl-green of afterglow, 
dark mountains, and glory of the crimson and 
purple zenith, with the blackbird’s last notes, dis- 
tant laughter of schoolmates, faint sounds ris- 
ing with blue smoke from the village, the fresh 
smell of dewy May foliage, associated above all 
with Louisa, Amy began to look forward to a 
livable life, full of aims and interests. Hitherto 
the aftertime had been thought of as an ending 
to all things, like death, but with no desirable 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


31 


hereafter. Other studies were added to the 
Greek. Leave was obtained from home to stay 
up an hour after the school had gone to bed, 
till half-past nine, instead of half-past eight, thus 
leaving ample time for beauty-sleep. Time was 
filched from early morning and holidays. Often 
the two, having stolen noiselessly from their 
beds, saw the sun rise on the Westmoreland fells 
and waters. Now a dark mass of mountain 
would be crested with rosy gold, gradually steal- 
ing downwards till it blushed sudden crimson 
over the pale mirror of the lake. Crimson would 
change to purple, orange, pale gold. The lake 
would turn to delicate blue with a whitish gloss, 
like folds of satin, in sunshine, and in shadow 
clear rich brown, the brown of the high moors, 
whence the waters descended to its basin. Mists 
would float in capricious shapes about the hill- 
tops, a solid white cloud would brood over the 
lake like a sleep, hill-tops standing clear in morn- 
ing gold above it, while the lake lay still and 
dark beneath it with boats’ shadows cut sharply 
upon it. Gradually the white cloud warmed to 
deep purple and crimson; again the crimson 
paled to rose, the rose to salmon, to primrose, 
and faded into nothing, when the unveiled lake 
and mountains were spread out clearly in the 
morning light. Then rose matins of early black- 


32 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


birds and thrushes; the bleak moors and windy 
fells of Westmoreland are too cold for larks. In 
winter, wrapped in shawls and shivering in the 
light of a solitary taper, they saw the hill-tops, 
nearly always covered with snow, gleaming be- 
neath frosty stars and wintry moons; at times 
the weird lustre of an aurora spread over the 
sky, ribs of light springing from horizon to 
zenith, where they met, like the stone ribs of 
a vaulted roof. These solitary studies in the 
deathlike stillness of the sleeping house, had a 
tinge of romance and mystery that enhanced 
their charm; there was keener delight in knowl- 
edge bought at the expense of ease and com- 
fort. 

When the sad moment arrived to take a final 
leave of White How, Amy Langton left it in 
glowing health, and deep regret, but with prom- 
ises to correspond and pursue her studies at 
home. 

But La Gracieuse! She was thinner, paler, 
more ethereal in appearance than ever. 


CHAPTER III. 


“ And custom lie upon thee with a weight, 

Heavy as frost and deep almost as life.” 

“ What am I to do with Amy? ” Mrs. Lang- 
ton asked her stepson Steven, the head of the 
family, an ex-captain of dragoons of about forty- 
five. 

“ What has she been doing now, mother? ” 

“ She is so utterly unlike other girls. She 
thinks. She will say what she thinks, which is 
worse. She reads Julius’s medical books; the 
most shocking things, my dear Steven. And 
she dislikes society. She wants to go to 
Girton. Grace’s sisterhoods, slummings, and 
perpetual church-goings are bad enough. Cecil 
can not do upon his pay in the Sealing Wax 
Office. Poor Algernon, of course, is a trial. 
Georgie is my only comfort. But Amy, hidden 
away in corners with books and bones and dis- 
sections of dead bats and birds, is something ap- 
palling.” 

“ Shocking, mother, shocking! Still, Amy 
33 


34 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


isn’t a bad little maid, and she’s young, too. 
Eighteen, isn’t it?” 

“ Now she wants to study at this new school 
of medicine for women, thanks to that horrid 
governess, Louisa Stanley.” 

“ Let her come to us for a few months. I’ll 
reason with her. Alice will urge her to sweet 
reasonableness. We’ll make a woman of her.” 

So Amy went to Baron’s Cleeve for a few 
months. Her brother reasoned with her for a 
few months; his wife likewise. The Immaculate 
Lester, whose little estate, Croft Hall, was near, 
frequently called, dined, lunched, slept at Baron’s 
Cleeve during those few months, and reasoned 
with her; but she was still immovable. Mr. Les- 
ter was at this time much burdened with the 
moral welfare of his neighbours, which he lost 
no opportunity of trying to promote by precept 
as well as example. Amy thus had the advan- 
tage of counsel’s opinion against her project, to 
which she remained firm, nevertheless. 

When she went home, she importuned her 
mother daily to save her from the emptiness of 
an ordinary spinster’s life at home. She spoke 
of Mrs. Langton’s recent losses, and of her 
straitened means in case of the step-brother’s 
death. “ The boys will marry,” she said. “ Boys 
always do. Cecil will never be rich, and always 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


35 


extravagant. Algernon has already spent his 
money, and wants help himself. Julius will 
never make a fortune. Grace, Georgie, and 
Lucy, when they Tnarry, will take their portions. 
How little will be left! ” 

“ And Amy, when she marries? ” 

“ Amy will never marry,” she replied; “and 
if she does,” she added inconsequently, “ she will 
first make a stipulation that her mother is cared 
for.” 

Mrs. Langton was touched. None of her 
other children had troubled themselves much 
about a future provision for her. 

Finally, Amy won her point. Steven per- 
suaded her mother that a few years’ study would, 
at least, be good discipline for the young woman. 
“ The whim will soon pass if not made stronger 
by opposition,” he said. Amy’s god-mother had 
left her a few hundred pounds; this would pay 
the expenses of her studies. “ You can buy a 
good deal of experience with £300,” Steven 
maintained. So Mrs. Langton reluctantly 
yielded, to the intense anger of Cecil and Julius, 
who refused to meet their sister while she studied 
medicine. Amy therefore shared Louisa Stan- 
ley’s rooms, an exile from Angel Road. 

“ I am afraid we shall find the want of male 
society a great void in our life,” Amy said one 


2,6 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

evening, when the friends were sitting over their 
fire after dinner. 

“ Of course we shall, and our development 
will suffer in consequence. But that can not be 
helped. These conventionalities will pass, and 
men’s prejudices will give way.” 

“ Yes, we are only pioneers, after all, though 
the first roughness of the way has already been 
smoothed for us by more daring spirits. We 
must be content to give up the softer things of 
life.” 

“ Certainly. We must be careful not to 
marry, for instance. It would be a good plan 
to found a secular order of celibates. At all 
events, you and I will take vows against mar- 
riage, Amy.” 

“ Why bind oneself by vows? ” 

“ Lest you should be tempted. We must cer- 
tainly not marry, Amy,” repeated Louisa. 

“ I don’t know about that,” replied Amy. 

“Ah!” returned Louisa, reproachfully. 
“You are weak! You are not prepared to sac- 
rifice yourself to the Cause.” 

“ Suppose it should involve sacrificing some- 
body else? ” 

“ You traitor! you are in love.” 

“ I am not,” replied Amy. “ But I am hu- 


man. 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


3 7 


“ Even if I should lose my health ” 

Louisa added after a pause. 

“ Louie/’ the other interrupted hastily, “ you 
are not really ill, are you? ” 

“ No, only feeling the effects of governess 
life. I left off and entered this haven of rest just 
in time. You are strong enough.” 

“ Almost too strong. I never know how to 
throw off my superfluous energy.” 

“ There is another disadvantage for us. We 
have no physical training, like those noisy boys 
at St. Scalpel’s, and our recreations must be 
painfully few and select.” 

“ Amy, be very careful, and on no ac- 
count form intimacies with men,” her mother 
said one day, after many other injunctions, 
when visiting the exile at her apartments in 
town. 

“ I will indeed, mother,” replied Amy, throw- 
ing her arms round her mother’s neck and kiss- 
ing her. “ But I can not help laughing; your 
advice is so superfluous. In Angel Road, I had 
a hundred times the opportunity for such in- 
timacies. In rooms with Louisa, fenced round 
by all the bulwarks of conventionality, I am as 
safe as in a convent.” 

“ Conversaziones,” murmured Mrs. Langton, 
in a muffled voice on account of her child’s em- 


38 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


brace. “ Professors, queer people at medical 
women’s houses.” 

“ Nearly all married, all ugly, many old. Dear 
mother, they are about as dangerous as the mum- 
mies in the British Museum.” 

“ Doctors,” pleaded Mrs. Langton. 

“ All hate us but one, and he is madly in love 
with Louie.” 

“Actually in love with her!” cried Mrs. 
Langton, freeing herself from Amy’s arms. And 
are they engaged? ” 

“ O dear, no; Louie doesn’t care for him. 
They seldom meet, except in the street.” 

“ Then, pray, how do you know? ” 

“ I see it in his eyes.” 

“You see far too much,” complained the 
mother. 

Exiled from Angel Road, Amy passed part 
of the summer vacation with her step-brother at 
Baron’s Cleeve, where she frequently saw and ar- 
gued with Lester, whose appetite for these con- 
flicts grew with indulgence, and whose opinions 
strengthened with opposition. 

“ I have millions of things to tell you,” he 
said one sunny afternoon, “ but do come out. A 
house is a dungeon to-day.” 

What more natural than to stroll along ter- 
races together, until they reached a trellised ar- 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


39 


bour of vine and fig trees, which made a cool 
retreat on a hot afternoon? What more natural 
and also what more pleasant and conducive to 
the confidences of friendship? 

The Immaculate forgot his million things for 
about half an hour, then he spoke of his plans. 
He was about to make an Alpine tour. There 
was no longer any chance of a county election; 
the present member had no intention of resign- 
ing, as had been supposed. Lester was, on the 
whole, glad, being still too unsettled in his opin- 
ions for party politics. Amy was sorry. She 
thought definite duties and aims would give sta- 
bility and concentration to his character. In 
this he agreed. 

“ By the way, if I were really in Parlia- 
ment, dear pythoness,” he said, “ and that little 
apple of discord, Female Suffrage, were thrown 
amongst us, I should not be on your side.” 

“ Not yet. The many will never be on our 
side, but descendants of this generation of 
either sex will contend in the House of Com- 
mons.” 

“ Let me be spared the sight, dear 
prophetess.” 

“Society must progress,” she continued; 
“women will rise with men; the great tidal 
wave is set in motion; it can not turn till it 


40 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


has reached the flood. Everybody is against 
our cause; many are against us. The struggle 
is killing Louisa by inches. It sha’n’t kill me.” 

“ Give it up in time,” he said, half amused, 
half touched by her earnestness. 

“ Never.” 

“ What is to be done? Argument is use- 
less, compulsion out of the question. But it 
is hard to stand by and see friends destroy them- 
selves.” 

Amy gathered a white rose; she paused and 
thought. “ You are the only person who has 
ever really shaken me in my purpose,” she said, 
after a time. 

“ Perhaps no one else has ever had so true 
an interest in you and your welfare,” he returned. 
“ I would do anything to save you. Let me be 
your knight, let me rescue you.” 

“ Thank you, I would rather not be rescued,” 
she replied, flushing slowly and deeply. 

“ Think, dearest prophetess,” he added ear- 
nestly. “ We may not meet, as we are meeting, 
again for months, perhaps years. You might be 
so happy in a natural womanly way. Y ou might 
make others so happy.” She quivered at this, but 
made no reply. 

Then the old ground of woman’s fitness and 
unfitness w^s gone over, the charms of seclusion, 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


41 


meekness, and dependence were advocated, the 
beauty of wifely and motherly virtues extolled, 
and the loneliness of professional women’s lives 
dwelt upon. 

She was greatly touched. She felt that their 
friendship, the ideal and equal friendship between 
man and woman of which she had alternately 
dreamed and doubted, was a real and pleasant 
thing to both. She felt that it must now come 
to an end, or culminate in something more agi- 
tating and imperious. “ I am not ungrateful,” 
she replied, after consideration, “ but I am quite 
decided.” 

“ Think again,” he said, not without anger. 
He went down to a lower terrace, paced its 
length, and returned with some carnations in his 
hand. 

“ Have you been thinking? ” he asked, look- 
ing seriously at her, with something in the depths 
of his dark eyes never before seen by Amy, who 
was sitting in full sunshine on the low parapet 
that edged the terrace. She looked away over 
the wide prospect of sunny harvest-fields, 
woods, hills, and sea, before she said in a steady 
voice, 

“ I have been thinking how sorry I am that 
you and I will never be able to talk solemn non- 
sense together about things in general again.” 


42 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ I was a fool to think I could move you,” 
he exclaimed, dashing the flowers on the stones. 

“ You are angry? ” rather tremulously. 

“ I am sorry,” in a softened voice. 

They looked at the river on which they had 
rowed together, and the woods and fields in 
which they had wandered in their brief holiday, 
and both sighed. 

“ Good-bye, Amy,” he said, lingering. 

“ Good-bye, V she replied in a faint voice. 

Again he said “ Good-bye,” turned away, 
came back and said, “ Come what may, let me 
still be your friend.” 

He was gone. She tried to concentrate her 
attention on the “ Descent of Man.” She had no 
time for sentimental regrets and fond imagin- 
ings in her busy, strenuous life. But Amy’s pil- 
low was wet with tears that night. 

One sunny January day the Immaculate, with 
the weight of five more years upon his head, and 
the accumulated wisdom of the same time with- 
in it, was leisurely walking along a winding road 
in the Riviera, rejoicing in the bright exhila- 
rating air from a sapphire sea that broke in hid- 
den foam far below. Arrived the night before, 
he had left London a fortnight ago in a rich 
brown fog, since when he had been at Pisa, in 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


43 


a narrow room, made dreary by sickness, death, 
and the sorrow of a newly orphaned girl, whom 
he had brought to the Riviera. He leaned over 
a low wall by the road, pressing a white cluster 
of violets growing in a crevice. Here was a bush 
of blossomed thyme, full of murmuring bees; a 
green, bright-eyed lizard glanced over the stone 
wall. Ships with curved lateen sails flitted over 
the clear blue, sea-gulls sunned white breasts on 
waves. The bare boughs of plane, vine, and fig 
were scarcely seen among broad-leaved palms, 
spiked aloes, orange and lemon groves, shining 
myrtles, clothing the steeps below. Above, a 
majestic amphitheatre of mountains surrounded 
and sheltered these sunny declivities from bitter 
blasts that swept over Central Europe and rushed 
with concentrated fierceness through Alpine 
passes. Sterile mountain crags stood bare 
against the blue sky at the verge of the amphi- 
theatre, their strong limestone flanks seamed and 
scarred by the storms of ages, fringed lower by 
pine woods; lower still were foot-hills, clad with 
chestnut, oak, and solemn, gray-stemmed olives, 
and cleft by gorges winding away from the sea, 
threaded by little bickering streams, sometimes 
swollen to torrents. Peasants in peaked hats 
led their sagacious, well-laden donkeys down the 
paths, and handsome girls balanced baskets 


44 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


gracefully upon their heads. A little eminence 
beneath was crested by slender-stemmed stone 
pine, the dome of which was outlined on the 
translucent blue of the Mediterranean. 

After his farewell on the terrace at Baron’s 
Cleeve, the Immaculate was seen little in those 
regions, never by Amy. Nor did they meet 
elsewhere, nor did Amy realize the significance 
of the farewell, or of what preceded it. The 
blameless knight, whose virtues increased — his 
friends maintained — alarmingly with time, had 
not been idle in these years. He went on circuit 
with little success; he then went to the East, to 
India, Australia, America, peeped at New Zea- 
land and South Africa, glanced at Europe. He 
scribbled on most subjects and a few more. He 
had for the last two years represented the bor- 
ough of Dalesby. He was still as beautiful as 
the day, and as polite as Sir Charles Grandison. 

Leaving the carriage road, he climbed a wild 
mountain path, when he perceived another trav- 
eller a little farther on. She was tall, and moved 
gracefully in a well-fitting serge gown. A bo- 
tanical tin was slung over her shoulder, a roll of 
white cambric round her shady hat. She was 
taking a plant from a sunny bank, so Lester only 
saw her outline, and some thick plaits of brown 
hair shining in the sun. She turned at his step 


C 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


45 


and looked up with a flush of pleasure and sur- 
prise. 

“ Amy Langton! ” he cried. 

It was indeed Amy, her angles turned to 
curves, her gawkiness to grace, her eyes bright 
with pleasure and kindness. “ I should have 
known you anywhere!” she exclaimed. “ You 
are not a bit altered.” 

“ But you are changed,” he said, “ for the 
better,” he thought. 

She looked so radiantly happy and so bril- 
liantly healthful it took away a month of low 
spirits to look at her. “ Why is she so happy? ” 
he wondered. “ Has she given up physic? ” 

“No, I am not alone, Mr. Lester; a carriage 
full of invalids belonging to me is going round 
by the road. Lettice and I got out to walk. 
We are to meet by that clump of olives.” 

“ Lettice? ” 

“ Lettice Marshall, my brother Cecil’s wife’s 
sister.” 

They walked over some broken ground 
towards the olives, Amy giving an account of 
her invalids. Of Louisa Stanley, now a fully 
qualified surgeon and M. D. in broken health; 
of Grace, who had fallen into a pining state dur- 
ing her last year in an Anglican Sisterhood; and 
of Lettice Marshall, who was recovering from 

4 


46 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


fever in the early winter. Amy, who had gone 
through all studies and passed all needful ex- 
aminations to be an M. D. and general practi- 
tioner, was taking care of the party medically, 
socially, and financially, and enjoying a delightful 
holiday as well. Mrs. Langton, in consequence 
of Cecil’s marriage, was now obliged to reduce 
her establishment. She had had losses besides. 
But Cecil being gone, Amy was at liberty to visit 
at Angel Road. Her reconciliation with Julius 
had been very gradual. They now met with the 
stipulation that Amy should never refer to pro- 
fessional topics, and were as friendly as ever. “ I 
would rather see you in your coffin, my dear,” 
Julius said, “ but since I have done all I could to 
prevent you, it must be endured.” 

“ Julius,” his sister told the Immaculate, 
“ young as he is, is temporary house-surgeon at 
St. Scalpel’s. I am told that his amputations 
are really beautiful.” Georgie and Lucy led the 
old life — dressmaking, calling, and shopping by 
day; by night, dancing at other people’s houses 
and yawning over fancy work in their own. 
Georgie was quite as pretty and much more 
amusing than in former times; Lucy, a brilliant 
pianist and bad musician. There had been a 
rumour of Georgie’s engagement to Mr. Charles 
Lovelace, Cecil’s friend, of the Sealing Wax Of- 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


47 


fice; it was nothing more than rumour. Since 
this Mr. Lovelace happened once to go to the 
same place as Georgie, he had continued to hap- 
pen to go to every place in which there was a 
probability of her appearance. 

“ What a fool I was in those old days,” the 
Immaculate said very wisely. 

“ Are you so wise now? I liked you well 
enough as a fool. You would not be so nice 
without your follies.” 

This walk was one of those few purely bliss- 
ful memories that smile along the waste of years. 
So pleasant that it occurred to the Immaculate, 
as they strolled on, to spend a few weeks in the 
Riviera, instead of returning to England, as he 
had intended. 


CHAPTER IV. 


“ Indi i monti Ligustici e Riviera 

Che con aranci e sempre verdi mirti, 

Quasi avenado perpetua primavera 
Sparoli per l’aria, ben enti spirti.” 

Ariosto. 

“ Amongst other important events occurring 
since we last met,” Lester said, in the course of 
this delightful mountain walk, “ I have become 
a parent — by adoption.” 

“ A parent?” 

“Yes; I have come in for a legacy of a little 
girl, five years old.” 

“ Really? What will you do with her? ” 

“ What indeed, Miss Amy? ” 

An artist, friendless, penniless, and dying in 
Pisa, had sent for his old college friend, or rather 
acquaintance, and confided his motherless child 
to his charity. Lester could not conceive why 
he, a former acquaintance, lost sight of for so 
many years, had been chosen by the dying man 
as his child’s guardian. But Amy, with affec- 
tionate pride in her friend, thought she knew 

why. The adventure seemed highly character- 
48 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


49 


istic of her Bayard, her knight without fear and 
without reproach. It could have happened to 
no one else. 

They reached some broken ground with 
blocks of sandstone scattered amongst a sparse 
vegetation of juniper bushes and blooming 
heather, and saw the carriage waiting under the 
olives, when suddenly they heard a faint cry, and, 
looking up, saw the slight figure of a girl with a 
pretty face and shining golden hair, running 
laughing down a steep descent. A vision of ideal 
loveliness seemed to be descending from the blue 
above, in this fairily-fashioned figure, flitting 
down the rough steep in the sunshine. Seeing 
the stranger, she tried to stop, caught her foot in 
some .heather and fell. Amy and Lester ran to 
her; Amy lifted her head and supported it on 
her knee. “ Any pain? ” she asked in a matter- 
of-fact voice that Quixotic Lester thought 
hard. 

“ My foot,” she sighed, with a little shudder. 
The laughing, pink-flushed face was white as mar- 
ble, the delicate mouth drawn with pain. Les- 
ter thought it the most lovely face he had ever 
seen. 

“ Bear up, Letty, don't faint,” Amy said, lay- 
ing the drooping head with its loosened hair 
softly on some heather, while she examined the 


50 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


foot, appearing no more moved by her friend’s 
suffering than if a butterfly’s wing had been 
dusted. Had she screamed or fainted, the Im- 
maculate would have liked her better. But she 
actually laughed. “ Why, you silly little thing! ” 
she exclaimed, “ your foot is all right. See if 
you can stand.” 

“ Oh, I can’t, Amy, I know I can’t,” re- 
plied the patient, turning away and hiding her 
face. 

“ She is fainting! ” cried Lester, raising her 
very carefully in his arms. 

“ She had better not let me see her faint. 
There is a nice cool well down there, Miss Letty, 
if you want to faint. Mr. Lester, I think you and 
I can carry her to the carriage.” 

Speechless with indignation, he lifted the 
girl’s light figure in his arms, carrying her care- 
fully and easily over the broken ground to the 
carriage, in which Louisa Stanley and Grace 
Langton were waiting. “ Could you meet Mr. 
Lester under more appropriate circumstances? ” 
said Louisa in an undertone, as he reached the 
vehicle with his charming burden, and placed her 
carefully in the carriage, whence she gave him a 
grateful look from eyes “ gray as glass.” 

“ Oh, Miss Langton, I did not recognise you 
at first in this garb. How are you? ” he said, 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


51 


able now to raise his hat and do all that was 
proper, while wondering at his former admiration 
for this wasted, worn woman. 

“ No longer Miss Langton, Sister Avis,” she 
corrected with a wan smile. “ No doubt you 
wonder what business I have out in the world. 
I am sent for health.” 

It was quite late when the Immaculate 
reached his hotel at Col Aprico. Shadows were 
sloping, the sea was tinged with purple. A little 
dark figure, two little dark figures, were in the 
hotel garden, looking out anxiously. One was 
four-footed and first perceived his approach, fly- 
ing out with short, joyous barks, and scurrying 
along the dusty road to meet him. This was 
Nep, the dead artist’s retriever, who had trans- 
ferred his second-best affections to his dead mas- 
ter’s friend and successor, the first being reserved 
for Angela. While he was yet in a perfect agony 
of whining, barking, and tail-wagging, his little 
mistress, whose feet had meanwhile borne her 
less swiftly along the sunny road, arrived with 
streaming hair and outstretched arms, followed 
by an anxious, scolding nurse, and added her 
caresses to the dog’s. Lester lifted her in his 
arms, kissed her, and carried her back to the 
hotel. 

“ I thought you were dead, Carino,” she said 


52 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


in broken Italian. “ I thought the wolves had 
eaten you.” 

“ The signorina has cried for two hours and 
eaten no dinner,” added Perpetua, the nurse. 

Col Aprico is a health resort not very far from 
Mentone and at no great distance from Genoa. 
There Lester had rooms with a sunny outlook 
in the “ Montone d’oro,” while seeking a more 
suitable cage for his bird. Not far from the 
“ Montone d’oro,” a little higher up on the sunny 
slope that gave its name to Col Aprico, was Villa 
Dole’ Acqua, a boarding-house or pension kept by 
a maternal German lady, who exercised a kindly, 
if tyrannical, supervision over her invalids of many 
nations, and under whose benevolent wing the 
Langtons’ party had taken refuge. 

No sooner had the carriage turned the corner 
of the road and vanished from the sight of her 
gallant deliverer, than Lettice Marshall’s faint- 
ness disappeared; she sat up and asked with in- 
terest how it was that Mr. Lester contrived to 
appear so unexpectedly and so opportunely on 
the spot. “ I think, Amy, you might have intro- 
duced him,” she added. 

“ You saved me the trouble. Nothing could 
have been more perfect than your mutual intro- 
duction to one another.” 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


53 


“ The Immaculate will cherish a lifelong 
gratitude to Lettice for appearing in the char- 
acter of distressed damsel,” added Louisa 
Stanley. 

“ It is fortunate that Letty’s faints never oc- 
cur when she is out of reach of masculine suc- 
cour,” Amy observed. 

“ At all events, I neglected this opportuni- 
ty,” replied Lettice, sweetly, “ and you must ac- 
knowledge that it was a good one.” 

“ It would have been a pity to waste a faint,” 
returned Amy, acidly, “ when a twisted foot did 
quite as well.” 

“ I forgive you, dear,” said Lettice, with im- 
perturbable sweetness. “ I admit that it was un- 
kind to disturb that very interesting tete-a-tete. 
I should have kept discreetly out of the way. 
But why do you call him the Immaculate? Car- 
rie says he is not priggish, only perfect.” 

“ Without any humbug. What a good fellow 
he is!” Amy exclaimed in her impulsive way. 
“ Fancy a young man like that burdening him- 
self with a little destitute child! Isn’t it just like 
our Bayard, Grace? ” 

“ He was always kind, Amy.” 

“ Well, really this is a revelation. A man 
exists whom Amy admires,” murmured Lettice. 
“ And does he admire you? ” she added. 


54 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ Oh, no. He has the greatest horror of 
medical women.” 

“ And yet you are devoted to him? How 
touching! What a thing it is to be clever and 
strong, and to have platonic friendships!” 

All the pleasure Amy felt in meeting the Im- 
maculate once more, all the innocent happiness 
she had expressed to and of him seemed to have 
vanished. She did not know why, but she wished 
he had not come to Col Aprico. 

Next morning Lester, with the little dark- 
eyed child and big, black dog, strolled up to Villa 
Dole’ Acqua. A gate between two square 
massive pillars led to an alley formed by similar 
pillars, bearing creepers trained across from pil- 
lar to pillar. Between the pillars on one side 
the eye ranged over a lemon orchard in bloom, 
and thence down green declivities to the dark, 
calm sea. The child danced at his side, cling- 
ing to his hand and gazing up in his face while 
she prattled in the Italian that came quickly, 
yet brokenly, to her lips, and of which he 
could only occasionally catch the meaning, to 
the amusement and anger of the child, who 
laughed at his stupidity, and punished him with 
pinches. 

“Did you pinch your father like that?” he 
asked, in his difficult Italian. 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


55 


“ No,” replied Angela; “ he was not a fool. 
He understood.” 

“ You are naughty,” he said, looking severely 
at the small creature. “ If you pinch or say ‘ fool ’ 
again, I shall — whip — you.” 

Bursting into a shout of laughter, the imp 
ran to play with Nep. “ You are too much afraid 
of hurting! ” she cried, derisively. 

The Immaculate felt that this was wrong; 
he was puzzled. They met a pale young French- 
man arm-in-arm with a hectic Swede, two more 
of Frau von Stein’s “ children,” on their way, 
and, turning a corner beneath a small cliff of 
bare rock partially covered by creepers and climb- 
ing geraniums, entered a sunny, flowery cove 
with garden seats and tables. Here Amy and 
Lettice were playing ball with green lemons, aim- 
ing at each other’s faces. The Immaculate, sur- 
prised to see yesterday’s patient so agile, greatly 
admired the spectacle, which was very pleasant 
and picturesque, involving swift, graceful 
postures, flushed cheeks, sparkling eyes, and 
gusts of laughter. Amy could do wonderful 
things on the horizontal bar, and tie herself into 
true lover’s knots; Lettice had scarcely lost the 
supple grace of childhood. Thus they were 
very quick and deft at the game, like Nausicaa 
and her maidens playing at ball by that very 


56 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


sea. He assumed that the injured foot was 
healed. 

“ Oh, it was never really hurt,” Lettice re- 
plied, laughing and pushing her bright hair into 
place. “ What a little coward I am! My foot 
ached, and I turned faint, and thought I was half 
killed; that was all.” 

“ We don’t expect ladies to be very brave,” 
replied the chivalrous Lester. “ They are not 
made of iron.” 

“ Ah, how refreshing to hear that ! ” returned 
Lettice, with her lovely smile. “ I’m scolded all 
day long for cowardice and folly. I don’t want 
to be wise and brave. I like to be petted and 
taken care of.” 

“ How natural and how charming! ” he 
thought, dazzled by the laughing, blue-gray 
eyes. 

“ I ought to thank you for your kindness yes- 
terday,” continued Lettice. “ I must have made 
your arms ache.” 

“ Not in the least. So glad and proud to have 
been of service.” 

“ Is this your legacy? ” asked Amy, looking 
towards the child. 

“What a little sweet!” cried Lettice, open- 
ing her arms. “ Come and speak to me, dear.” 

“ Go, Angela,” Lester said in Italian; but 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


57 


she turned to her protector, clasping him by the 
knee and hiding her face. 

“ Don’t tease her,” Amy said. “ Poor mite, 
does she speak no English? ” 

“ A little. She is only five,” replied Vivian, 
stroking the dark curls against his knee. “ Miss 
Amy, I am glad to see you in such beautiful 
spirits this morning. Come, Angela, come.” 

Angela declined to unclasp her hands and 
show her face till Amy addressed her in Italian, 
when she at once lifted her head, looked in Amy’s 
face, and ran to her. 

Lettice flitted on to warn Frau von Stein of 
a stranger’s approach, and so give her time to 
make herself presentable. The others followed, 
Nep stalking behind, surveying the three with 
critical approval. Amy wore what Lester called 
her “ prophetess face she smiled upon the child 
with calm compassionate sadness. This proph- 
etess mood that amused him in old times was 
now somewhat awe-inspiring. She had grown 
so tall, and was known to be so learned. After 
all, it was well that she had chosen a self-de- 
pendent, if unfeminine, life. Could any man love 
a being so strong, so superior, so capable? On 
the other hand, who could fail to respect her, or 
who would not like to have so true and sure a 
heart to rely on in time of need? 


58 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ There is a nun! ” cried Angela, dashing for- 
ward and pointing through some shrubs at the 
figure of Grace sitting by some myrtles, her face 
bent over a red-edged book. 

“ Come back, Angela,” Amy said. “ Fancy 
having to say special prayers for every hour of 
the day! Imagine breaking the time of a think- 
ing being into tyrannical chips like that! No 
study is possible; very few occupations.” 

“ But can not Sister Avis understand that 
such things are bad for her health? ” 

“ Certainly not. Sister Avis renounced the 
conduct of her understanding, though Grace 
Langton is heartily sick of monotonous prayer- 
grinding. My sister is a slave, Mr. Lester.” 

“ Who is free? ” he asked. Once he had 
yearnings for a conventional life himself; he had 
worn a spotless surplice, and lifted a seraphic 
voice with seraphic looks and genuine devotion. 
“ Is Dr. Amy Langton quite unfettered? ” 

Frau von Stein and a detachment of her chil- 
dren were discovered on the veranda, enjoying 
the sunshine, the good Frau in a clean morning 
cap and newly-washed hands. These eccentric 
English are full of small prejudices — about clean 
hands, for instance, as if hands could be clean 
in the morning, when every good Hausfrau is 
busy with dusters and pots and pans. Lester 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


59 


addressed her in his best German, to the joy of 
a young man from the Fatherland, sitting by a 
fair, pale Swiss girl, whose accent he was trying 
to improve; a blonde Danish girl joined in the 
German that Louisa and Amy spoke well; Frau 
von Stein’s consumptive niece could feel the 
breath of German air on her face. 

The ladies of Villa Dole’ Acqua were inter- 
ested in the pretty child, Italian by birthplace, 
by her mother, by her dark eyes and hair, her 
speech, and her breeding. But Angela did not 
respond. The German, which she considered as 
a hideous kind of intensified English, frightened 
her; so did the Italian upon which some of her 
Teutonic friends ventured. She clung to Vivian 
and Amy alternatively, and was not to be be- 
guiled by bon-bons. Nep sat on the gravel in 
front of the veranda, his paws stretched out be- 
fore him, and looked on with benevolent conde- 
scension. But when Lettice attempted to draw 
the child to her by force he growled, and Les- 
ter warned her in German that he was dangerous. 

“ Pray don’t speak German to me,” replied 
Lettice, “ I never could understand, much less 
speak, anything but English.” 

“ Why should you? ” he wondered, thinking 
it quite enough pleasure to hear her voice. Frau 
von Stein loved these mad Englishmen and made 


Co 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


this one welcome, though he worried and con- 
fused her by handing cups and chairs and open- 
ing doors for her “like a servant”; therefore, 
the Immaculate became a frequent and welcome 
visitor at the pension. Sometimes he stayed in 
the garden, sometimes he accompanied those 
who were strong enough to walk up the moun- 
tain path. One bright morning, when Lettice 
and Amy were setting out on such an excursion, 
he asked to join them with his pets. Higher 
up they found better views and brighter flowers 
for Angela, who adorned Nep with collars of vio- 
lets and daffodils, which he wore with his accus- 
tomed dignity. 

“ Amy’s strength is something frightful,” Let- 
tice observed, pausing in the ascent, leaning on 
Lester’s arm, which had already saved her one 
or two slips. “ She is actually carrying that 
child.” 

“ I think her strength admirable,” he replied, 
glad that no such strength deprived him of the 
pleasure of supporting the fairylike creature 
upon his arm. “ How lightly she springs up the 
path. It is like looking at some statue of Pallas 
or Here, in which strength is so lost in beauty 
that we feel rather than observe it, while the 
whole effect is one of calm perfection.” 

Lettice shot a momentary glance from her 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


61 


bright eyes to his. “ I never thought of Amy 
in connection with statues,” she returned slowly 
with a thoughtful air. Her chief notion about 
statues being that they were deficient in clothing. 
“ But people see things so differently, and 
friendship is sometimes a little blind. Knowing 
this, clever Amy must make you look down upon 
the rest of us, who like pleasure and dress, and 
are frightened to death at — Ai! Ai! she 
screamed, as a little green frog hopped across 
the narrow path. 

He looked at her, but said nothing, lest he 
should say too much; he was falling so swiftly 
under the spell of her exquisite loveliness. The 
glance revealed much, too much, but Lettice 
wanted more; she wanted the direct homage of 
words. 

“ Ah! ” she sighed, with a hurt look. “ You 
are too kind to wound me by saying what you 
think.” 

The fish immediately swallowed the bait. “ I 

could say nothing that would wound you ” 

he began, and stopped, intoxicated. “ Do you 
know,” he continued, after a pause, “ that weak- 
ness is — lovable? Weakness is a woman’s great- 
est charm.” 

She was highly amused at these remarks. 
“ You are saying wicked things, for which Amy 
5 


62 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


would kill you/’ she laughed in her silver 
treble. 

“ Is Miss Langton so terrible? ” he asked, 
smiling. Just then Amy turned on her upward 
path, the laughing child in her arms, and looked 
down upon the pair below. She saw the look 
upon Lester’s face, a transfiguring expression 
almost religious, and a spasm shot through her. 
“ There is no doubt about it,” she thought. But 
why should that grieve her? “ Surely,” she 
mused, “ it is well, for Lettice needs a strong, 
loyal nature to bear her through life.” The mag- 
netism of Amy’s gaze caused Vivian to look up. 
He saw, in the sunshine high up, the child’s dark 
Italian face beneath her fair English one; the 
little thing, clinging to the well-poised form, 
looked down in safe confidence. Sunbeams made 
a glory in Amy’s light brown hair; her smile was 
pensive, even sad. A moment before it had been 
in his mind to ask her not to carry the heavy 
child; now he thought she might carry a world. 
Presently they halted on a little terrace, under 
the shelter of a rock, and looked down soft de- 
clivities clothed with verdure and blossom, far 
down to the deep, indescribable blue of the quiet 
sea. Nep chased lizards, Angela butterflies; the 
others sat in silence, hearing humming bees, dis- 
tant tinkling cow bells, confused murmur from 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


63 


roads and gardens; under all, like the sweet bur- 
den of a melody, the soft croon of the sea. Swal- 
lows flitted out twittering from a warm, rocky 
shelter beneath. Voices of singing girls rose 
from orange gardens below, where they were pil- 
ing baskets with Hesperian fruit. 

“ It is like the gardens of Armida,” Amy said. 

“ Who was Armida? ” asked Lettice, with her 
innocent candour. 

“ A woman of genius, who made people fall 
in love with her. She was very beautiful and un- 
scrupulous.” 

“ She was not a woman at all,” Lester added, 
“ but a fiend.” 

“ And then he knew it was a fiend, 

That miserable knight,” 

quoted Amy and Lester, simultaneously. 

Among the numerous perfections of the Im- 
maculate were a velvety voice and a pleasant 
way of reading poetry. Therefore, when Let- 
tice, attracted by a wretched knight and a lovely, 
fiendish lady, wished to know their history, he 
was kind enough to repeat, most musically and 
impressively — 

“ All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 

Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 

Are all but ministers of love, 

And feed his sacred flame,” 

till Angela, caught by the rhythm and the words 


6 4 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ love,” “ dream,” “ happy,” left her play and 
leant against Amy’s arm to listen — 

“ And she was there, my hope, my joy, 

My own dear Genevieve,” 

repeated Lester, almost tremblingly, when he 
found he was thinking of Lettice, while he gazed 
straight out to sea. 

“ She listened, with a flitting blush, 

With downcast eyes and modest grace ; 

For well she knew I could not choose, 

But gaze upon her face.” 

Who could help seeing Lettice in that? 

“ And so I won my Genevieve, 

My bright and beauteous bride,” 

the Immaculate ended, with a quiver in his 
voice. 

“ Thank you; a pretty tale, but she was very 
easily won,” Lettice remarked. The others were 
silent. Lester carried Angela down the moun- 
tain. During the descent, which was not hur- 
ried, one of the old discussions arose between 
him and Amy on such airy trifles as fate, sub- 
jective poetry, drama, enchantments, the use of 
opium. Lettice listened 

. . . “ with a flitting blush, 

With downcast eyes, and modest grace,” 

contributing little to the serious and solid con- 
versation beyond a smile or an assent. 

When, at bedtime, according to custom, 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


65 


Amy went to the room she shared with Louisa 
Stanley, to be able to attend on her suffering 
friend at night, she arranged the knotted olive 
roots burning on the open hearth, and brushed 
out the shining coils of Louisa’s hair, her nightly 
task. But, though this was the moment for 
confidences, she brushed in silence to-night. 

“ What is the matter? ” asked Louisa, enjoy- 
ing the dancing firelight and the mesmeric influ- 
ence of the brush, with the dreamy languor of 
consumption. 

“ Nothing,” replied Amy, finishing her la- 
bour of love and twisting the long, fair hair into 
a massive coil; “ at least, I was thinking of cut- 
ting your hair short ; this heavy growth weakens 
you.” 

“ Spare my hair — my one vanity.” 

“O Louie!” cried Amy, throwing herself 
on her knees before the glowing wood fire, and 
burying her face in her lap. 

“ Well, child?” 

“ He is in love with her.” 

“ Who is in love with whom? ” 

“ Vivian Lester with Lettice Marshall.” 

“ What of that? Will the world come to an 
end? ” 

“ You know what she is, Louie, a shallow, 
selfish girl, and he ” 


66 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ Well! he is all very well, but not exactly a 
demi-god. I always liked your Bayard, Amy, 
though he is so fatally perfect. Let us hope that 
he will strengthen Lettice’s character.” 

“ She will drag him down.” 

“ Then he must be made of poor stuff. My 
dear child, go to sleep, dream that you are a 
physician to the Queen, and leave the Immacu- 
late to fall in love and out again, as best he 
may.” 

“My pretty Amy!” Louisa thought as she 
tossed on her restless couch and listened to the 
sleeper’s even breathing; “her affections are as 
untroubled as her health. But I wish this Per- 
fection would go back to England and leave us 
in peace.” 

Amy was dreaming of the ruined tower in 
the ballad, the low sweet music and the love- 
stricken knight, who, of course, wore the fea- 
tures of the blameless Lester. Presently the 
sleeper’s smile faded as the dream darkened; 
the singing of birds arose in the enchanted gar- 
dens of Armida, and two Crusaders, with faces 
like Amy and Angela, sprang from the bushes 
with drawn swords to free the spell-bound knight 
from his enchantment. 


CHAPTER V. 


“ Tell me where is Fancy bred, 

Or in the heart, or in the head, 

How begot, how nourished? 

“ It is engendered in the eyes, 

With .gazing fed ; and Fancy dies 
In the cradle where it lies.” 

February came, bringing a warmer and 
longer day, white heath blossom, white lilies, 
hyacinths, anemones and primroses, and glowing 
masses of tulips in the gardens. The sparsely 
blooming flowers of winter — geraniums, salvias, 
carnations — now blossomed more freely; the 
scent of wall-flowers and stocks was in the air; 
camellias became daily more splendid; violets 
were a weed, mimosa a golden cloud. Those 
pure white camellias are often put to a melan- 
choly use at this season, when invalids die off 
quickly. With February another Parliamentary 
session in England opened. Members came 
thronging back to Westminster, from fox hunt- 
ing and shooting; from Egypt, Algiers, Men- 
tone, and Rome, but the member for Dalesby was 

not among them. No very exciting events were 
67 


68 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


forward; England was not even waging a little 
war, although a few skirmishes had taken place 
on the borders of British India; there were few 
Irish grievances; Scotland was lapped in mo- 
mentary content; Conservatives were in office; 
the country was not overrun with discharged la- 
bourers and half-pay officers; no one for the mo- 
ment was particularly anxious to disestablish the 
Church, to abolish the Crown, the Constitution, 
or the rights of property. Neither Slave Trade 
nor Factory Acts, Female Suffrage nor Artisans' 
Dwellings, disturbed the Parliamentary mind, 
and the gardens of Armida were fair; therefore, 
the Immaculate decided that his country might 
be trusted to dispense for awhile with his pres- 
ence. 

An enchanter’s wand had been waved over 
the prose of life, turning it to pure poetry. 
Vivian Lester seemed to have forgotten that he 
had only come to the Riviera to place Angela 
there, and that a multitude of duties and inter- 
ests called him back to England. At night ne 
liked to go in the fishing-boats, hauling tarred 
ropes and handling fish, nets, and bait with the 
fishers, and coming home in the small hours, or 
even at dawn, drenched and weary, invigorated 
and delighted. It was beautiful to flit over the 
dark waves, beneath the silence of the starry sky, 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


69 


and watch the boat’s light tremble on the water; 
to see Col Aprico and the fishing village on the 
shore below, the distant coast towns and villages 
sparkle out among orange groves, aloes, and 
caroubs, casting flickering lights on the dark sea; 
to feel the keen night-breeze with now and then 
a scud of rain, a squall of wind, even a storm; to 
share the anxiety and excitement of the fisher- 
men, to whom weather meant bread, even life. 
Their patois of. mixed French and Italian was 
soon understood; they sang songs to plaintive, 
monotonous tunes; they were fascinated by the 
Immaculate’s genial courtesy and adaptability, 
and soon discovered his genuine kindness of 
heart. Whole pages of Homer and Byron 
floated through his mind while he bore a part 
in whatever was forward on board. Sometimes 
the song of the Sirens would rise from the sweet 
sea silence; again Ulysses and his men sped west- 
wards on the last endless voyage over the wine- 
dark sea. Or Ulysses looked out, homesick, upon 
the blue waters, from the chamber in which the 
beautiful nymph sat by her perfumed hearth and 
span, while actual, present seamen plunged their 
lances into the fish by the light of fire-buckets 
at the prows. Or there was the morning plunge 
in keen cold sea, the swim, the return to little 
Angela at breakfast; the rosy child, clinging to 


70 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


him, caressing him, giving him a home. On 
sunny days he took her with her nurse for a sail, 
Amy and Lettice and Frau von Stein often be- 
ing of the party. Sometimes the Immaculate 
passed long sunny hours with the invalids on the 
veranda or in the garden. On those occasions 
he was often struck with the sad change in Grace 
Langton, to whom five years ago he had lost 
hah a heart, so near was this gentle, sweet-faced 
girl to his ideal. But, Sister Avis! faded, hag- 
gard, pinched in face and figure, with constant 
headaches, mysterious sufferings, and no interest 
in life! She was an object for pity, indeed, pro- 
found pity, but love — No. 

“ What has changed your sister? ” he asked 
Amy one day, understanding she had no disease. 
“ If I am not mistaken, she has no true vocation 
for the religious life.” 

“ Neither has she. She needed occupation; 
she couldn’t stand the emptiness of our frivolous, 
aimless girl-life. Slumming and church embroi- 
dery were not enough. So she drifted into this 
sisterhood. The severity, monotony, and tyr- 
anny are killing her. That is all.” Her eyes 
haunted Lester, who was not deficient in feeling; 
hungry, restless eyes they were, the prison cells 
of a struggling soul. But Louisa Stanley was an 
even more piteous spectacle in her frailty and 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

feverish energy, with her short, dry cough, bril- 
liant colour, transparent hands, and the remains 
of such singular beauty. What an irony, he 
thought, on this new notion of learned and pro- 
fessional women. 

“Ah!” said Amy, with emotion, “it is not 
study. I knew Miss Stanley as an overworked, 
worried governess, thinking the long hours and 
perpetual strain of school teaching paradise in 
comparison with the life of a private governess. 
It is the repression of every faculty but that of 
monotonous endurance that kills. The repose 
of wholesome study came too late.” The Im- 
maculate was deeply grieved; he felt that all 
these girls ought to have been married and thus 
saved. But he could not, under existing social 
arrangements, marry them all, else would he 
cheerfully have done his duty as a gallant 
knight. 

Grand discussions took place on the veranda, 
complicated often by the confusion of tongues pre- 
vailing at Villa Dole’ Acqua. During these serious 
debates, Lettice looked on and down from a su- 
percilious height, occasionally smiling in response 
to some appeal, or appearing to listen in gracious 
silence. Not that she actually listened to “ dry 
stuff ” about politics, literature, art, science, 
morals, human nature; but she looked as if she 


72 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


listened and looked charming, while she mused 
upon her bonnets and frocks, or thought of vari- 
ous little relationships, jealousies, and antipathies 
at Villa Dole’ Acqua, or in the English colony, 
of the depth of a certain consumptive clergy- 
man’s devotion to Amy, of the extent to which 
the blameless knight had resigned his affections 
to her own keeping. This topic was the most 
interesting; she really liked Lester; his homage 
was more acceptable than that of other men; 
she appreciated his gracious presence and fine 
courtesy. The Immaculate was enchanted with 
the sweet, womanly humility with which she 
listened, thus offering a quiet, unobtrusive sym- 
pathy in her silent presence. This still receptiv- 
ity was the crown of Lettice’s charms. 

Frau von Stein’s weekly receptions were 
small and early, being arranged with reference 
to the convenience of her invalid “ children.” 
Der ritterliche Lestare was almost always among 
the guests. Col Aprico society was necessarily 
limited in quantity and chiefly invalid in quality; 
the von Stein receptions occurred after sunset, 
thus excluding chest patients. Conversation was 
polyglot, but largely English of a kind. The 
ubiquitous Amurkan girl, marvellously dressed 
and absolutely at her ease, was not wanting at 
the evening receptions. The Immaculate’s sen- 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


73 


sitive feelings were often wounded by these 
damsels; one of them called on him at the 
“ Montone d’oro ” to take him for a drive in 
her waggon. 

“ There’s just room for you and me,” she 
called out in piercing nasal treble, “ and I 
guess we’ll have a real good time together, 
anyhow.” 

Poor, dear St. Vivian’s face was a study; he 
almost swooned under this overwhelming dis- 
tinction. He “ coveted the honour,” he was 
“ sensible of the kindness,” it “ was really too 
good of” Miss Willis; he “could not take ad- 
vantage,” until Miss Ada D. Willis came to the 
conclusion “ that the Britisher was just real 
queer, and she had no use for him anyway.” 

But our “ good Herr Lestare’s ” exquisitely 
poised feelings were often pained and shocked 
even by the proceedings in Frau von Stein’s salon. 
He insisted on opening doors and handing chairs 
for ladies, and greatly embarrassed fair-haired 
PYaulein Anna, Frau von Stein’s niece, by want- 
ing to hand coffee and cakes, a prerogative she 
reserved to herself, according to national custom. 
Resigning himself sorrowfully to these depraved 
habits, he learnt at last to look on, tolerant but 
martyred, and more beautiful than ever. One 
evening in early March, the young German, von 


74 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


Wilden, was at the piano, making it rage and 
roar like an angry Titan, wail and lament like a 
lost angel, whisper soft ecstasies, breathe exquis- 
ite longings, peal in jubilant exultation. Then 
he showered discords upon the keys, as if a de- 
moniac battle were raging within; again, a troop 
of fairies seemed to be tripping to delicate meas- 
ures in the moonlight; it is impossible to say 
what this young Teuton did not do with the in- 
strument. A steely flame was in his blue eyes, 
his flaxen moustache and long hair bristled, his 
compatriots wept; Lester was so enthralled that 
he did not observe the departure of Lettice from 
the room. Presently the music died into rippling 
sweetness, like hidden brooks; it was so low and 
soft that the crackling of olive roots on the hearth 
was heard — then, like a nymph from the water, 
arose a melodious Volkslied, simple and artless 
as a wild bird’s song, yet vibrant with elementary 
feelings. 

Von Wilden kept his eye upon a certain 
which was drawn across the doorway of the 
double drawing-room, and modulated the con- 
cluding strains into the slow, mysterious notes 
of the immortal “ Lorelei,” with its burden of 
unutterable yearning and deep, yet pleasing, mel- 
ancholy. It was taken up in four parts by hid- 
den voices; the curtain was raised, the ldrnps low- 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


7 5 


ered. In the brilliant light thrown into the back 
room, oleanders, palms, and myrtles in tubs made 
a miniature forest, beyond which was the sheen 
of water (mirrors on the ground, their frames 
hidden with ivy), out of which, shadowed by more 
verdure at its base, rose a rock, the summit 
steeped in yellow light. Above all, in the blaze 
on the crest of the rock, reclined the fatal, fairy 
Lorelei, combing her golden hair with her golden 
comb and singing her mystical song. Her slen- 
der white throat and round white arms glittered 
with jewels; a golden belt, studded with gems, 
bound her shining white garment. The gold 
tresses, delicate features, and fairylike form were 
those of Lettice. 

All who could sing joined, as if under a spell, 
in “ Ich weiss nicht was soli es bedeuten,” Eng- 
lished thus by the Immaculate: 

“ I know not why I am h olden 
By dim, mysterious woe, 

A legend of centuries olden 
From memory will not go. 

“ The air is cool, it is darkling, 

The Rhine waves peacefully flow ; 

The tops of the mountains are sparkling 
In evenings tranquil glow. 

“ Above is a maiden reclining, 

So sweet, so fairily fair ; 

The light in her jewels is shining, 

She combs her golden hair. 


7 6 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ Her comb is of gold, and serious 
And tranquil, singeth she 
A song with a deep, mysterious 
And mighty melody. 

“ The fisher, his little bark sailing, 

It seizes with wildest woe ; 

He sees not the rocks, but, paling, 

Looks up at the golden glow.” 

Lester scarcely breathed, as he looked up at the 
beautiful vision, spell-bound, his features wan and 
strange in the dim light. 

“ At last in the wild waves’ swinging, 

The fisher and boat are spun ; 

And that with her magic singing, 

The Lorelei has done.” 

The curtains ran across, a storm of applause 
arose. “ Wunderschon! ” “ Wal, that was just 
elegant ! ” “ Ravissant ! ” “ Brava ! ” “ Well 
done!” Then Frau von Stein, who had wept 
from the first Lorelei note, drying her eyes, rose 
and bid the Swiss girl “ Good-night,” the guests 
took leave, melted imperceptibly away, and Les- 
ter went out into the cool, starry night, singing 
softly like one in glamour. 

“ Her comb is of gold, and serious 
And tranquil, singeth she 
A song with a deep, mysterious 
And mighty melody.” 

Alas! poor blameless knight! he lingered long 
beneath the lemon flowers, watching the lights 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 77 

fade from the villa. Then he went to the shore, 
unmoored a boat, and rowed out to sea. A cres- 
cent moon poured a flood of liquid silver on the 
dark sea plains. Col Aprico, with lessening 
light-sparkles, lay nestled in the gorge; hoary 
olives, shining myrtles, caroubs, and orange trees 
stood magically still in the moonbeams. As the 
boat shot tranquilly on, terraces widened, masses 
of olive and fir gloomed darkly, rocks gleamed 
whitely in silver rain of light. Snow had fallen 
recently; the higher mountains were tipped with 
sparkling white; waves washed softly; oars 
dipped with a musical splash — all was poetry 
and enchantment. He rowed on and on, over 
paths of silver, over fields of gloom, beneath wan 
stars, the magic song in his ears, the Lorelei spell 
upon him, on and on in silence and night and 
solitude. Deeper than the lowest depths of the 
Mediterranean, deeper than unplumbed wastes of 
deepest ocean, this poor youth thought himself 
in love. 


6 


CHAPTER VI. 


Celia. “ Come, come, wrestle with your affections." 

Rosalind. “ Oh, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself." 

In the moonlit garden of Villa Dole’ Acqua, 
breathing flower-scented air and gazing wistfully 
on the silvered sea, where the solitary boat was 
a dark speck on the moon’s bright path, Amy 
Langton stood long, thinking of Lester’s face, 
wan and strained under the Lorelei spell. 

“ Moonstruck, Amy? ” asked Louisa from 
her bed, as she entered the room they shared, 
when at last she went in. 

“Completely lunatic,” she replied; “and 
wicked enough to leave you to brush your own 
hair.” 

“ I am quite strong now. I shall be able to 
go to work again in the summer.” 

“Ah! dearest physician, heal thyself first.” 

“ You shall do that.” 

“ Don’t talk. Go to sleep, Louie.” 

“ Amy,” said Louisa, starting up suddenly, 
“ if I fail, if I die, remember it was not the pro- 
fession.” 


78 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


79 


“ Hush! who talks of dying? ” 

“ If I become a confirmed invalid, don’t let 
them say ” 

Amy was silent, knowing that her friend 
would never be well to do anything. 

“ You know it was not the profession,” con- 
tinued Louisa, with flushed cheeks. “ Remem- 
ber those years of exhausting drudgery and 
teaching; how I robbed myself of sleep to get 
the mental food I was denied by day. And then 
that early unhappiness! Nothing saps health 
like that.” Amy too well remembered a story 
of treachery and wrecked happiness and affection 
heard once in the twilight. 

“ Sleep, dearest, sleep,” she said. “ Dream 
that you are principal of a medical college.” 

Louisa was nine-and-twenty; she looked 
scarcely nineteen in the quiet slumber that soon 
fell upon her; she had an infantine look, the oc- 
casional effect of the disease that was consum- 
ing her. How much had Louisa’s “ story ” to 
do with her sickness? Was the unnatural gloom 
of the cloister or the pining for a lost dream the 
cause of Sister Avis’ weariness of body and spirit? 
Surely Grace might have been healthy and happy 
by this time, had she lived a wholesome life. 
Louisa had so long learnt to rate the man who 
had broken faith with her at his real worthless- 


8o 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


ness that a less laborious, a less wearisome strug- 
gle against the world might have spared her fatal 
disease. 

Waking in the early morning and looking at 
the marvels of light upon the dawn-touched sea, 
Amy’s first thought was of the Lorelei spell. She 
had aimed at living on such a high level, in such 
a pure, passionless calm of soul, had so loved old 
tales of lofty maiden lives, of Athenes, Dianas, 
and Teuton prophetesses. Such lives she had 
thought herself strong enough to follow. And 
now? She was hurled from this lofty eminence. 
Why, why, did the Lorelei spell make her so sad 
and sick at heart? Why? 

She took the geological hammer, likened by 
the Immaculate to that of Thor, in happy times 
gone by, the botanical tin, a long roll of bread 
and a piece of cheese, and went out into the 
beauty of the dawn. The sea was a vast heav- 
ing splendour of millions of jewels and sheets 
of molten gold, transfusing themselves silently 
one into the other. The breath of morning was 
gentle but invigorating. Peasant boys with 
donkeys, basket-laden girls tripping up mountain 
paths, boatmen out in the bay, sang as they went 
their several ways. Flower fragrance rose like 
incense from censers of golden light, every step 
crushed violets and blossomed thyme in the path, 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


8l 


the song of birds blended with low sea murmurs, 
and the soughing of pine tops was a chant of joy 
before the Eastern splendour of sea and sky. She 
flitted rapidly and easily in that buoyant air, up 
the steep, sunny eminence that gives name and 
shelter to Col Aprico, till she reached an olive 
grove above it, and rested. A larger expanse 
of sea and sky was now visible in increasing splen- 
dour; the transfusing of jewels and blazing gold 
was deeper; the great sea spread its storied 
waters in burnished glory before the sight; her 
heart thrilled to think of all those waters had seen 
in ages gone by. That glowing flood touched 
almost every shore venerable in story and song, 
the cradles of learning and art, of law and re- 
ligion; the farthest wave was even now kissing 
the soil of Palestine. Exhilarating thoughts! 
Exhilarating air! Exquisite world of beauty and 
peace! 

Farther on she presently came upon a girl 
milking goats, and asked for a draught of milk. 
In a few minutes the milking girl’s history was 
told, the story of her father and mother, her 
brothers and sisters, their goats and olive yard, 
her betrothal, the little tragedies preceding it, 
her approaching marriage, and the small house 
that she was to live in. The milking girl was 
very happy, she said. — Milkmaids always are; at 


82 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


least in poems and plays. Why can we not all 
be milkmaids? — She had refused Pietro only five 
times, of course meaning to have him if he asked 
long enough. Pietro was a good lad, and “ bel 
garzon.” Happy, happy milking girl! 

Amy gave her something to buy a wedding 
present with, and went her way, picturing the 
girl’s homely life with envy, as she walked on. 
All in it was so calm and restful; nothing stirred 
it but the season’s changes, hopes and fears of 
the olive harvest and wandering goats, excite- 
ments of lemon picking, of pruning and planting 
fruit trees, and tilling patches of maize. At the 
end of the day she had walked far and rested 
long, but the hammer had been idle, the flower 
tin was empty. 

One subtle movement of soul had taken all 
the taste and spirit out of her own life; yester- 
day it was the rose blooming on the stem, to-day 
the rose cut and withered in the sun. 

“ Were it not better done as others use 
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade ?” 

But something nobler replied, “ No; life has 
better things than happiness.” 

Everything suddenly seemed more difficult, 
less worth the doing ; life had become arid, bar- 
ren of interest; the past was dreary to remem- 
ber, the future weary to anticipate. For there 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


83 


could never be any joy, nothing to anticipate but 
work and struggle — a gray, sunless life. What 
struggles Louisa and she had made to gain their 
professional knowledge. Amy had spent vaca- 
tions in teaching children, supplementing nurs- 
ing staffs, and writing for magazines. How they 
had been pushed about from examining body to 
examining body, found perfect and then denied 
diplomas! What antagonism they had encoun- 
tered in private and public! Themselves had 
figured in public prints as “ unwomanly women.” 
Personal rudeness and unmanly sneers they had 
received, but not the actual physical violence 
some older friends had suffered at the hands of 
chivalrous men students at a great historic city 
in the north. These ladies, it seemed, had to 
be hustled and knocked about and forcibly ex- 
pelled from lectures, lest the knowledge of the 
laws that govern and the harmony that pervades 
organic life should blunt their finer feelings. 
Vexed by a thousand arbitrary obstacles to study, 
while their brothers’ studies were cradled and 
fostered in silk and velvet, they had still sur- 
mounted them; but would she — for Louisa’s race 
was run — have courage to face those offered to 
the practice of that hardly won profession; 
arbitrary obstacles and barriers made lest the 
finer, feebler stuff of female minds should be 


84 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


strained by overmuch labour? They had con- 
quered so far. Are women then made of more 
heroic stuff than men? 

Such thoughts revolved all day in her brain, 
gradually and insensibly soothed by the beauty 
and calm of the hills. A solemn, still voice spoke 
peace from the deep heart of mighty Nature, 
the undying friend of man. “ I am great,” said 
that calm voice, “ but there is a greater. Have 
no fear; be true, unselfish, noble. Live up to the 
fuller light dawning within. Let happiness take 
care for itself. Trim and feed the clear light 
burning within.” 

Thus exalted in spirit, she came down the 
mountain path into the purple glory of evening, 
that burnt in her wind-blown hair and transfig- 
ured her face. The first star swung tremulous 
in the pale green west; Villa Dole’ Acqua was 
still far away, when something black bounded up 
the steep path in the purple gloom with a joyous 
whine, heralding his master. 

“ Ah! my Bayard! why, why, did I not listen 
to you long ago? Why was I blind and deaf 
and stupid? Nobody and nothing is like you in 
the whole world,” she thought. Let them call 
him a prig — perhaps she was another — he might 
be impossibly immaculate, too fond of regener- 
ating mankind by his own unaided wisdom, too 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


85 


much inclined to preach and prose; still, he was 
in truth a very perfect gentle knight; he was 
made of sterling stuff, and he was young, and she 
was young, and — he Was bewitched by the 
Lorelei’s song. 

“ Why, what is the matter? ” asked the Im- 
maculate, springing up the path in the gathering 
dusk in his proper person. “ And where have 
you been the whole day long? ” 

“ I’ve been geologising and botanising, as 
you see. There is nothing the matter.” 

“ But, dear prophetess, you are pale. You 
are not looking happy.” 

“ Who is happy? ” returned the sibyl. “ Life 
is not always easy.” 

“ But it should be. Come, dear prophetess, 
can’t I help you? Nothing I can do? I don’t like 
to see you pale and sad.” 

“ Not sad; a little tired. I’ve been think- 
ing.” 

“Ah! Dr. Amy, your good angel, believe me, 
has spoken to you — indeed, it has struck me of 
late that something was stirring within you. 
You have been different; at one time I thought 
you were vexed with me — but I see now you 
are perceiving the mistake of your life. It is 
not too late to change.” 

“ Much too late.” 


86 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ No, not too late. A character with such 
fine elements as yours. Try a happier life; 
natural and feminine like ” 

“ Like Lettice’s? ” 

“ Exactly. That is a life that soothes and 
elevates one to contemplate.” 

“ It does not soothe or elevate me in the 
least. No, Mr. Lester, your eloquence is wasted. 
My good angel has indeed spoken and coun- 
selled me — to go on. But I must go home. I 
am tired.” 

“ At least take my arm.” 

“ Thank you, no. I am best alone when 
tired. I am always best alone.” 

“ Take warning from your friend’s fate. The 
life has killed her.” 

“ Not this life,” Amy said; “ something far 
more wearing.” 

“ Dear Miss Amy, are you a real woman or 
a goddess? ” 

“ Oh, a goddess,” she replied. “ Can you 
doubt it? ” 

“ I believe it. I always thought it. I am 
awed by you. You are a higher, an unearthly 
being, superior to human weakness. But, dear 
goddess, I have not yet told you.” The Immac- 
ulate came to a full stop; perhaps he blushed. 

“ Nothing wrong with Angela, I hope? ” 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 87 

“ No, and yet — I have to leave Angela — I 
am going back to England.” 

“Poor neglected England! It’s about time. 
Who knows but the empire may already be be- 
yond even your succour? ” 

“ You are severe. I shall be gone about ten 
days. Will you take the child in my absence? ” 
asked the Immaculate, whose virtues were almost 
redeemed by his- good temper. 

“ Certainly, if you can trust her.” 

“As for trusting! This is real friendship, 
Amy. In gratitude for which I shall make 
further demands ” 

“ I am tired,” she said, petulantly, turning 
towards a bench under an olive, where she 
rested. “ The moon is rising. I hope that no 
bad news calls you to England,” she added, look- 
ing down at the dark sea. 

“ No, not bad news.” 

“ Then you want no sympathy,” she replied, 
with concentrated essence of gall. 

“ Ah, but I do. It takes two to be happy,” 
was the profound rejoinder. “Do you re- 
member our old talks, of the ideal I hoped to 
realise? ” 

“ Perfectly. You were to inform me when 
the catastrophe occurred.” 

“ It has occurred.” 


88 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ Quite unnecessary to tell me/’ 

“ Why? ” 

“ Because my eyesight is good.” 

“ Ah! Do you think others have seen? Has 
she seen? ” 

“ Others have not seen. And Lettice — what 
she thinks I do not mean to tell. If you can’t 
make love at first hand, you can go without a 
wife.” 

“ Oh! thank you;, thank you so much. But 
I must wait ten days before I may venture to 
take decisive steps to make sure? ” 

“ Don’t you think her worth waiting for? ” 

“ Ah! Amy, you have never been in love.” 

“ How do you know? Somebody waited 
twice seven years once.” 

“ I would wait thrice — for her.” 

She thought it would be a good plan. 

“ I have known her only a few weeks; she is 
away from her parents.” 

“ I am her guardian for the time.” 

“ Dear prophetess, you look like a guardian, 
but not an earthly one. It is so slight an ac- 
quaintance; she is so young, so inexperienced. 
She is so — how dare I think of winning her f 
Every mean thing has vanished from existence; 
there is a new splendour on the sea, in the stars. 
Life is no longer a disease, but a rapture.” 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. ,89 

“ You ought to say all this to her, not to 
me,” she returned drily. 

True. The Immaculate was silenced, but he 
had almost said what he secretly thought, that 
Lettice would never understand these transcen- 
dental emotions. Pale light filtered through 
the olive boughs on his beautiful spiritual face. 
Amy, with her head resting against the rugged 
gray olive trunk, her face in the shadow, won- 
dered and wondered. “ Poor Rinaldo,” she 
thought. “Poor, helpless, spell-bound knight! 
When will he wake and be in his right mind? ” 
The moon’s path widened on the gleaming 
wave, while stars looked softly from an azure 
sky; some boats cuttle-fishing with lances, and 
with pots of fire at their prows, moved in the 
shallow waters close in shore, their red lustre 
falling weirdly over the sea and reflected upon 
the dusky figures standing with ready poised 
lances in the boats. Points of ruddy gold along 
the coast were towns and hamlets; massed myr- 
tles, orange and lemon leaves threw back the 
moonshine like flakes of silver. He looked on 
this beautiful night scene thoughtfully for a lit- 
tle, she on him; then he turned to her with 
a smile, “ You will at least wish me God- 
speed?” , 

“ With all my heart.” 


9 o 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ Thank you. But how shall I ever win her — 
one so far, far above me? ” 

“ She is fortunate in winning such unselfish 
devotion,” Amy returned, with hardly veiled im- 
patience. This prostration before such a worth- 
less idol degraded him. To see him twine gar- 
lands on the ass’s head was too painful. 

“ I want you to approve my choice. Tell me 
that she is not only the most beautiful, but the 
best of her sex.” 

“ My good friend, I am not in love with Let- 
tice,” she said gently. 

“ Nor with me; yet you seem to set me 
highest.” 

Amy passed her hand over her face. “ Don’t 
women always run each other down? ” she asked 
acidly. 

“ Dearest goddess, you should be more than 
woman.” 

“ Perhaps I am less.” 

They sat long in the solemn shadows of hoary 
olives, he speaking, she mostly listening. He 
told her of his plans; arranged to prevail upon 
Frau von Stein to take Angela. “ Why not the 
whole menagerie? ” Amy said. 

There was a strange peace in thus sitting and 
conversing for the last time, she thought. What 
a child her knight was, after all; like a child sit- 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


91 


ting at his mother’s knee in the firelight, pouring 
out his small hopes and aspirations; like a child, 
unconsciously selfish; like a child, pitied and 
borne tenderly with by his confidante. Flower 
scents rising on the chill sea breath, soft rustle of 
winds in olive, aloe, and oleander boughs, mellow 
lustre of the ascending moon on magic sea and 
fairy shore, gray olive boles, torn and twisted as 
if by storm, and looking, in the faint filtered 
lights, like aged pillars in a Saxon church; sounds 
of each other’s voices, low boom of the gentle 
sea — all were impressive, never forgotten. But 
what was this? When they rose from the olive 
shadows and began the descent, Amy found the 
world turning wildly, her limbs gave way, she 
swayed, the Immaculate caught her a dead 
weight in his arms. Had she done this a few 
days earlier, well! the course of the Immacu- 
late’s true love might have been different. As 
it was, he was frightened to death. Still it was 
among his perfections always to do the right 
thing at the right moment. Therefore, there 
was of course a flask of brandy ready in his 
pocket, which he applied with the utmost ele- 
gance and dexterity to her lips with one hand, 
while supporting her head on his shoulder with 
the other arm, kneeling gracefully meanwhile on 
one knee. It was a most affecting spectacle. 


9 2 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


Miss Amy Langton weighed about ten stone; 
no wonder Mr. Lester trembled beneath his 
lovely burden. But would he have quivered and 
turned so pale under ten stone of oats or pota- 
toes? Possibly not. All night in dreams he 
was toiling through endless distances, Amy al- 
ways stayed upon him, and always slipping 
through his arms down infinite descents. 

When Amy woke next morning, she found 
the natural but prosaic result of a long day’s 
wandering and romantic evening conversation in 
the olive shades was a severe and unbecoming 
cold in the head, of all mortal ills the most hope- 
lessly prosaic, the least relieved by romance. If 
no philosopher ever endured toothache patiently, 
who can endure a downright, deafening, blinding, 
stifling catarrh with resignation? Especially 
who that is feminine and fair? But Miss Amy 
Langton supported her affliction with philoso- 
phy; she bore the reproaches and caresses of Frau 
von Stein and her strange, unhallowed potions 
with angelic patience. A gentle strife raged be- 
tween Louisa and the good Frau on the treat- 
ment proper for the patient, the latter acting 
upon the principle of hitting a man when down, 
prescribing starvation and lowering medicines; a 
principle which is one more testimony to the in- 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 93 

vincible toughness of German constitutions; the 
former held to the principle of picking up the 
fallen. This strife the patient calmed by accept- 
ing the Frau’s medicines and Louisa’s glasses of 
wine and strong soups impartially. 

Early next morning the Immaculate called to 
take leave and hear what was to be done with 
Angela. The announcement that Lester was 
leaving the Riviera for England stirred a univer- 
sal desire to take advantage of his journey. The 
English had letters for him to post in London; 
to these they added half a dozen parcels. The 
foreigners to a woman required needles of Eng- 
lish manufacture in various sizes, which, perhaps, 
Meester Lestare would “ make come ” for them. 
The young German gentleman wanted English 
books and stationery; Frau von Stein was in need 
of a few dozen yards of English calico; so were 
two or three other ladies; Fraulein Anna men- 
tioned with some blushing that she should like 
some long stockings of English machine make; 
almost everybody wanted Sheffield cutlery. The 
young Frenchman alone needed nothing from 
England, but if M. de Lestare should be at Paris, 
would he have the extreme complaisance to pro- 
cure for him half a dozen indispensable articles 
from the only civilized spot on the globe? 

Monsieur de Lestare with the utmost charm 


7 


94 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


and complaisance undertook all these commis- 
sions, taking the precaution to record them in 
his note-book. 

“ Tell me, Liebchen,” added the good Frau, 
knitting her brows in thought, as she addressed 
Amy, who was sitting in the sun, a semi-animated 
mass of shawls, heaped upon her by the kindness 
of her friends, “ is there something more I might 
make bring cheaply out of London? ” 

“ You were wanting a four-post bedstead the 
other day, meine Beste.” 

“ Zat could incommode him,” replied the 
Frau; “such English bedsteads are heavy.” 

Lester turned to Lettice, who was reclining 
gracefully, sunlight and shadow enhancing her 
beauty, a white camellia in her hand. 

“And you?” he asked, “what may I do for 
you? I shall ask permission to call upon Mrs. 
Marshall one day.” 

“ No; will you, really? ” returned Lettice with 
brilliant eyes and a joyous surprise; “ then you 
will take my love to them, and say how well I 
am looking — that is, if you think so.” He cer- 
tainly thought it. “ But I shall certainly fall 
ill if I go home yet,” she added, with charming 
archness. “ Be sure you say that, Mr. Les- 
ter.” 

“ Every word of it. I shall be seeing your 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


95 


nieces — Miss Langton’s nieces — one is my god- 
daughter.” 

“ Oh, yes. Cecil and Carrie are staying with 
mother. Only my love.” 

“ They want somebody’s love,” Grace said. 
“ They get very little from their parents.” 

“ They are angry with them for not being 
boys,” added Lettice. “ How very natural! ” 

The Immaculate’s sensitive face quivered as 
if a false note had jarred. 

Frau von Stein consented to receive Angela 
and her nurse to the satisfaction of the majority 
of her guests. It was a serious matter to break 
the tidings to the child, and the parting was not 
accomplished without some diplomacy. Angela 
received an invitation to dine and sleep at Villa 
Dole’ Acqua, which she gladly accepted, her joy 
dashed by the announcement that Vivian was 
not coming home that night. Weeping ensued, 
whence her mind was diverted by fairy tales 
and promised pictures and toys at Villa Dole’ 
Acqua. 

“ Does that woman live there? ” she asked 
suddenly, lifting her head from her adopted 
father’s arm. 

“ Which woman? ” 

“ The cross one with yellow hair — Letty.” 

“ It is naughty to call people cross, Angela. 


9<5 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


I hope you have not been naughty to that 
lady.” 

“ I shall not go if she lives there,” the child 
returned tranquilly. 

“ Will you not go to Sister Avis and Frau 
von Stein and Miss Amy? ” he asked, lifting her 
head and setting her on the ground impatiently, 
upon which she began to cry. His heart smote 
him when he looked at the small figure standing 
before him, its chest heaving, its little fists 
screwed into its eyes. 

“ Don’t cry, Carina. Look, I am going to 
bring you a beautiful doll when I come back. 
She needs a mother, poor mite,” he thought, 
soothing and caressing her till she smiled 
again. 

But Angela, though pacified, was firm in her 
resolution not to go to the “ cross woman,” and 
only the appearance of Frau von Stein and Amy 
on the hotel steps cut the knot of the difficulty. 

“ I promise you, my little angel, you shall 
have nothing to do with Lettice; that young 
lady would go to the end of the world to leave 
you behind,” Frau von Stein said in broken Ital- 
ian. “You need not fear, Herr Lester,” she 
added in German, “ the little one will always be 
happy with Miss Amy. You can therefore buy 
my calico with a light heart, and think of your 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


97 


little one in a child’s paradise. Farewell, my 
good Herr Lestare. A happy journey. Auf 
Wiedersehen! ” 

Angela declined to go without her father; he 
therefore accompanied them to the gate, when 
Amy turned, with the child clinging to her dress, 
and bid him vanish suddenly without good-bye 
before Angela perceived him. “ Take this,” she 
added, giving him a piece of white heather “ for 
good luck.” 


CHAPTER VII. 


Viola. “ I’ll do my best 
To woo your lady : yet, a barful strife ! 

Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife. 5 ' 

Twelfth Night. 

The presence of a child among- the invalids 
and boarders at Villa Dole’ Acqua was not un- 
attended with inconvenience. Angela’s follow- 
ing, consisting of Perpetua, who systematically 
spoilt her and was ready to wage war with the 
universe on her behalf, and of Nep, who glared 
with fiery eyes and gaping jaws upon any one who 
appeared to molest his little mistress, were not 
altogether welcome additions to the household. 
A few days of rain, which kept the invalids close 
to the house and prevented the child and dog 
from playing in the garden, further complicated 
matters. What with keeping Angela from an- 
noying the invalids and soothing her nightly 
grief at the non-appearance of her father, besides 
preserving peace between Perpetua and the 
household, and seeing that Nep was fed and kept 
out of mischief, Amy was somewhat burdened. 

98 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


99 


“ Really, Amy/’ said Lettice, one pouring wet 
afternoon, as she strolled into the dining-room, 
“ Platonic friendship is a fine thing. I wonder if 
Mr. Lester is as much obliged to you as he ought 
to be for the trouble you take with his pets.” 

Perpetua sat by the hearth in great good 
humour; she had been telling anecdotes of 
Angela’s family, of Angela herself, and of Nep, 
who were playing at ball with Amy. The game 
was to keep it passing from hand to hand. Amy 
threw the ball, Angela missed the catch with a 
shriek of joy, the dog caught it with short barks 
of delight. Perpetua, a handsome peasant 
woman of forty, looked on with gleaming teeth 
and sparkling eyes. 

“ I like children and dogs,” replied Amy. 
“ Ball is great fun on a wet day. Come and try, 
Letty.” 

“ Thanks,” replied Lettice, shrugging her 
shoulders, and drawing a chair to the hearth. “ I 
am afraid of that great dog. I wonder when Mr. 
Lester means to send that spoilt child to school. 
Perhaps he is looking for a school in England for 
her. Amy, why are you so mysterious about 
this journey of his? You know all about it, of 
course.” 

“ Oh, yes,” she replied, coming to the fire 
with Angela, who climbed on her lap, “ I know.” 




100 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ But you don’t mean to tell. Well, I think 
you might tell me in confidence. Take care, 
Amy; these moonlight wanderings are danger- 
ous.” 

“ Are they? How? ” 

“ Colds are not the worst results. Amy, I 
really think you believe in that man, with his 
perfections and his pretended friendship.” 

“ Possibly. Don’t you? ” Did Lettice really 
dislike him, she wondered, or were these sharp 
sayings only jealousy? 

“ Oh, he is well enough,” replied Lettice, im- 
patiently pushing a piece of wood into the flame 
with her foot. “ But men are never to be trusted. 
He is a flirt — one of the worst kind. He blinds 
you with his solemn talk about dry things, which 
he knows is the right way to your heart. He is 
not like others who have one manner for all. 
Oh, yes, Amy, he is enjoying a fine flirtation with 
you without compromising himself. If I were 
you, I would put an end to it. He looks so des- 
perately good and solemn all the time. And 
yet, in the midst of this fine talk with you, he 
will suddenly turn and look at me — such a look! 
At first, before I discovered what a thorough 
flirt he was, I used to believe in those looks. I 
actually laughed one day and wrote to Carrie 
that I had never seen a man so hopelessly and 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


IOI 


ridiculously smitten before. But he need not 
think to throw dust in my eyes. I am too well 
used to that sort of thing.” 

“ Which, Letty? Being deceived or being 
made love to? ” 

“ Not being deceived, certainly. You know 
so little of life, dear. Stewed up with your 
books, you have never felt what it is like to 
walk into a ball-room and see all the men sur- 
render at one glance. You know that garrison 
dance last May I was telling you about? It was 
my first big dance. There was a huge fellow 
with a beard by the door who went dead white 
at the first glance. My card was full before he 
could get an introduction. You should have 
seen his face! He stood against the wall and 
eyed me all the evening; he made a dash at me 
at supper-time and took me down. He proposed 
in the hall. Three engagements were broken off 
on account of me that night, and the young 
Wellmans, who had then been married about two 
months, have not been friendly since. It almost 
frightened me when I saw five big men standing 
round me and all declaring that I was engaged 
to dance with them at once. They were telling 
lies, of course. I chose the one I liked best, and 
just as we were starting on the waltz, up came 
the right man with a face like thunder and showed 


102 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


his card. I promised to divide the dance be- 
tween them. One man turned crimson when- 
ever I looked at him; another stammered when 
he spoke to me. Oh, it was fine! ” 

“ Really, Letty, I don’t think you need accuse 
other people of flirting.” 

“ Flirting! My dear, I didn’t flirt; what 
chance had I? I simply came into the room 
and looked, like — who was it? Either the Duke 
of Wellington or somebody in the Bible — who 
came and saw and conquered. Not that I dis- 
liked it. What girl could? Not even you, with 
all your learning. Wait till you have tried, and 
you might make a sensation in a room, if you 
took pains to make the most of yourself, and 
took care not to open your lips and betray your 
cleverness and learning. See if it doesn’t get into 
your head like champagne!” 

“ My poor little Letty! This is a very dan- 
gerous kind of champagne.” 

“ Stuff! You know nothing of the world. 
Amy, you are much more likely to get your wings 
singed than I am. By the way, people here have 
made a pretty good guess at the object of Mr. 
Lester’s journey, and if they are right, you are 
not as simple as I thought.” 

“ Well,” replied Amy, taking the restless 
Angela once more on her knee, and displaying 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 103 

a picture book to her gaze, “ what do people 
imagine the object of Mr. Lester’s visit to be? 
To be present at the Disabilities of Women De- 
bate? ” 

“ Viviano mio,” murmured Angela, catching 
her friend’s name among the waste of hard Eng- 
lish words that were so unintelligible to her, and 
lifting her liquid, lustrous Italian eyes from the 
picture book to Amy’s face with an eager, be- 
seeching look. “ He is coming back to-night? 
Yes, Amy? ” 

“ Figliuola mia; not to-night, next week.” 

“ When is next week? It is never next 
week,” murmured the child. 

“To be present at the debate? Naturally 
that was part of it. Ah, that was a fine stroke 
on the part of our Viviano, as Angela calls him. 
He knows the way to your heart, dear. The deli- 
cacy of the stroke! Fancy that humbug stand- 
ing up before them all, the story-teller, and de- 
claring that he had come to vote against the 
Bill for Removing Disabilities, but that what he 
had heard in the honourable member for Slow- 
combe’s speech in its favour had induced him to 
support it.” 

“ So you read Mr. Lester’s speech? I 
thought, Letty, you never looked at newspapers, 
much less debates.” 


104 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ Neither did I; I only listened to Mr. 
Browne, who -was talking to Louisa about it. 
‘ Ah/ Mr. Browne said, ‘ I know what self-de- 
ceivers we are, at least the masculine portion of 
us, and I could not help thinking that had our 
friend, the member for Dalesby, more strictly 
analyzed his reasons for changing his opinion 
about Female Disabilities, he would have been 
obliged to confess that the society of a charming 
and very learned lady in the Riviera had a great 
deal to do with it. I assure you, Miss Stanley/ 
he added, ‘ that no one at Col Aprico would be 
surprised at receiving intelligence about a cer- 
tain lady doctor and a certain honourable mem- 
ber.’ ” 

“ Mr. Browne said that ! ” cried Amy, flush- 
ing. “ Miserable old gossip! Hateful old don- 
key! Let him go about in petticoats and take 
to working cross-stitch! The chaplain is the 
faithful reflection of the gossip of the communi- 
ty,” she added, making sparks fly from logs on the 
hearth. 

“ Just so, dear child. Can you wonder now 
that people suppose Mr. Lester’s visit to have 
reference to matrimony? ” 

“Stuff! By the way, Lettice, what did Mr. 
Browne think of Mr. Lester’s speech? ” 

“ Whose? Oh, Bayard’s, of course! He said 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


105 


it was very good; he admires his speaking. What 
was it he said? Oh, I know; ‘ His ready elo- 
quence often makes us forget his want of logic ’ ; 
that was it.” 

“ Mr. Browne is right; he is not logical; he 
is eloquent. His imagination is stronger than 
his reason.” 

“ Now confess, Amy,” continued Lettice, 
“the object of his visit is matrimonial. Aha! 
Dr. Amy! we know all about the olive yard, 
where two people were seen sitting on a 
bench in the moonlight for who knows how 
long. I wonder what kind of conversation 
is likely to be held under olive trees in moon- 
light?” 

“ It depends on who the people are. Who 
saw us? ” asked Amy, reddening. 

“ Oh, my dear, these little things are not so 
easily hidden from the vulgar gaze as you think. 
Somebody saw.” 

Amy was tired of Lettice’s perpetual teasing 
about the Immaculate; besides, a dim suspicion 
had lately been increasing within her that Let- 
tice did not care for him, so she thought she 
would end the teasing and decide her doubt at 
once. 

“ Well! ” she replied, “ then I had better tell 
you in strict confidence. Mr. Lester does con- 


1 06 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


template marriage, and is gone to England on 
that account.” 

“ Ah! ” cried Lettice, turning pale and stoop- 
ing to adjust the burning wood. “ This, then, 
is the meaning of Platonic friendship! Well, 
Amy, you might have been more open. So it is 
to end in this way after all. Oh, how false! 
What a flirt! What a humbug! Of course, 
your people will consent; they’ll jump at him, 
and you will be married just like other people, 
just as if you had never been a doctor. Carrying 
off such a catch, too! ” 

“I?” returned Amy, almost regretting her 
words when she saw Lettice’s discomposure. “ I 
am not going to be married. I was speaking of 
Mr. Lester. But keep my secret, Letty. I told 
you in strictest confidence, remember.” 

“ He is not engaged to you? ” exclaimed Let- 
tice, turning from pale to red, “ and yet he thinks 
of marrying? ” 

“ This is a secret, remember. Not a soul 
knows. How foolish I was to tell you! ” 

“ Who is the girl, dear? Tell me, oh do tell 
me, there’s a darling! ” cried Lettice, hiding her 
face in Amy’s dress. “ I know I am horrid to 
you; I worry you to death, but I promise you to 
be ever so nice if you will only tell me. Is it — 
Louisa? Is it that horrid Lottchen Romer? ” 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


107 


“ My little Letty, I can’t tell you, I’m sworn 
to secrecy.” 

“ Oh, you must! you must! you shall! ” cried 
Lettice, passionately, her face still buried. “ Is 
she pretty? ” 

“ H’m; yes. Everybody says so.” 

“ I don’t believe it; I am sure he has no taste. 
Oh, tell me, she has a great fortune; he wants 
money.” 

“ She has little, if anything, I believe; besides, 
he does not want money.” 

“ Oh, what a story! You always told me he 
was poor.” 

“ So he is; poor for his position.” 

“ A country gentleman of good family,” mur- 
mured Lettice. “ The county will visit her. 
She will go to court. She will have a town house, 
no doubt. Well! if he is poor, it is not much of 
a marriage. You told me Crofton Hall is a ram- 
shackle old house, and with very little land. 
When I marry, I shall marry into the peerage 
and take care that there is money.” 

“ I would, if I were you, Letty. While you 
are about it, you may as well aim high. I hope 
you will marry a good man. If you love him, 
you will not care about his position or money.” 

Something like a sob came from the hidden 
golden head. 


io8 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ Tell me, Amy,” she murmured, “ is he much 
in love with her? ” 

“ Over head and ears. Bewitched.” 

“It’s a shame! She's a horrid thing! hide- 
ous and stupid! some gaunt, grim, learned crea- 
ture, with red hair and spectacles! I always 
thought him a fool, a prig, and a flirt. Now I 
know it. I hate the wretch! ” 

She raised her flushed face from her friend’s 
shoulder, sprang up, stamped on the ground, and 
rushed out of the room, crying with all her might. 

“ At all events,” mused Amy, as she stroked 
Angela’s glossy curls, “ she loves him as much as 
she can. They may be happy after all. He will 
see no fault in her. Poor Lettice! at least she 
loves him.” 


CHAPTER VIII. ' 

“ You are a thousand times a properer man 
Than she a woman — 

But, mistress, know yourself ; down on your knees 
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love.” 

As You Like It. 

“ E gia la settimana prossima? ” little Angela 
asked of Amy as usual when she went to her in 
the morning to say her prayers — “ Amy, will it 
never be next week? ” 

“ Next week, at last. He will come to-day, 
carissima mia.” 

“ Oggi, gran Dio! Oh, Amy, oggl! Will he 
come to breakfast? Oh, I shall die! I shall 
die! ” 

“Are you so glad to leave me? You know 
you will go back to the hotel when he comes.” 

“ No, I won’t. Viviano shall live with the 
Frau, or else you shall live with us and Nep. 
We will have macaroni for dinner every day. 
Amy, do you love him? ” 

“ Picciolina mia. Come to breakfast.” 

The child was beside herself; she could eat no 
8 109 


no 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


breakfast; she fidgeted about till she knocked 
against Lettice, and dashed her cup out of her 
hand, sending the black, scalding coffee all over 
her new spring costume. This was too much; 
what with the stinging hot coffee over her arm, 
and ,dark stains over her fresh, light dress, Let- 
tice’s temper flashed out. She turned with an 
angry cry and gave the child a sounding box on 
the ear. Angela stood for a moment, dizzy, half 
stunned with the blow, which made Lettice’s hand 
tingle; then, with a shrill scream, she sprang at 
her like a wild cat. Sister Avis pulled her off 
with considerable difficulty, and carried her out, 
kicking and struggling, into the veranda, where 
she laid her down on the cool pavement. 

“That child is a perfect demon !” cried Let- 
tice, crimson with rage and pain. “ Look here! ” 
Rolling up her sleeve, she showed a ring of little 
red indentations in the cream-white arm. “ She 
almost made her teeth meet.” 

“ I wish she had,” Grace replied hotly. 
“ Venting your wicked temper on a poor little 
child!” 

“Ach! That was not well done, my Lett- 
chen,” said the good Frau, looking at her favour- 
ite’s arm and then at the frantic child on the 
ground. “ Ze little one was never beat yet, and 
Italian blood is warm.” 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


Ill 


Lettice went away injured and in high 
dudgeon, in spite of some twinges of conscience, 
thinking to make it up to Angela with sweets 
and toys some day. The child screamed till she 
became rigid and black in the face. Sister Avis 
then picked her up, exhausted, and carried her 
out to look at the flowers and see the pigeons fed. 
There they met Amy, rather pale and with her 
hand tied up, Nep following her, his tail between 
his legs. 

“ The dog has bitten you! ” cried Grace. She 
had heard Nep’s growl when Angela was struck, 
and had seen Amy run out on the veranda and 
catch him by the collar as he was about to rush 
into the breakfast-room. 

“ I was obliged to beat him,” Amy said. “ I 
am the only person in the house who can master 
him.” 

“ He would have killed Lettice,” said Sister 
Avis; “ he would have had her by the throat the 
next moment.” 

“ Don’t say anything. Fortunately Perpetua 
was not there.” 

The bite was not severe, though the skin was ^ 
broken; but the sisters thought it well to keep 
both dog and child out of Lettice’s way for a 
time. They strolled up the hill-path, carrying 
Angela by turns, while Nep slunk behind with an 


1 12 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


ominous red glare in his eyes and a confused 
sense of wrong in his canine brain, knowing 
that he had been beaten for trying to do his 
duty. 

Presently they came to a warm niche in the 
rocks, carpeted with violets and redolent of 
thyme; here they rested, Angela lying quiet on 
the ground, with the dog, also quiet, crouching 
beside her. How often Grace had longed for 
death! How long she had lived in disgust of 
life and contempt for all it could bring. But 
when Sister Avis looked down at the deep sap- 
phire sea, bright in morning sunshine, she did 
not want to die; life seemed so lovely, so full of 
possibilities. 

“ How we shall miss the sea,” she said. “ It 
was mistaken kindness to bring me here. I shall 
have to fight the fight to subdue my worldly af- 
fections all over again.” 

“Take your freedom, Grace; live a natural 
life. Leave what you have no vocation for.” 

“ When you renounce your chosen vocation, 
it will be time for me to think of renouncing 
mine; not before,” her sister replied, rising and 
taking the child again. 

Little Angela soon forgot her injuries and 
her passion, but Nep slunk about with a trailing 
tail, red eyes, and a beaten look all day, avoided 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. I 1 3 

by the household, who heard that he had bitten 
Amy. 

“ I am glad I didn’t see it,” was Lettice’s sole 
comment on the incident. “ I should certainly 
have fainted.” 

It was growing chill in the afternoon, when 
several of the Dole’ Acqua family were sitting in 
the garden, with Angela playing near. Lettice 
was hovering about discontentedly, wanting to 
talk to Amy, who was reading, but restrained 
by fear of Angela and Nep, who were making a 
barrier to her. Just then quick, light footsteps 
were heard approaching, and the Immaculate 
himself appeared from round a corner hidden by 
some shrubs, having come softly to surprise 
Angela, whom he had seen from a distance 
through a glass. But it was not easy to sur- 
prise her; she heard and recognised the step al- 
most as soon as the dog, and flew to him with a 
cry of joy. He caught her up, kissed her, and 
was going to set her down again, but the small 
arms were too tightly clasped about his neck. 

“ Angiolina mia, what is the matter?” he 
asked. The little girl was sobbing and crying 
and clinging to him, while Nep whined, barked, 
and sprang into the air in a manner that pre- 
vented the Immaculate from doing his proper 
devoir to the ladies present. De Rolleau said 


1 14 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

something about family joys and l’ art d’etre pere. 
Lettice, standing apart, contemplated this family 
scene with profound scorn. 

“A nice family,” she thought; “they both 
bite.” 

After all, the blameless knight was human, 
and to be human is to have moments of reason. 
That is probably why M. de Lestare, ecstatically 
received by the child, the dog, and M. de Rolleau, 
of Paris, was chilled and disappointed at evoking 
no display of enthusiasm from the Misses Mar- 
shall and Langton. Could he expect these 
ladies to throw themselves into his arms en 
masse f 

“ How are you? Had you a pleasant jour- 
ney? What an age since you left! When did 
you leave England? ” ought surely to content an 
ordinary mortal; but the Immaculate was not 
an ordinary mortal. He said and did all the 
proper things in the most proper manner, as soon 
as he was disembarrassed from Angela, and had 
set her down with an injunction to go and play. 
But whatever he did that day, the child was still 
clinging silently to him, and Nep fawning at his 
feet. 

“ The white heather brought me good luck,” 
he said presently, stopping before Amy, who was 
again absorbed in her book at the farthest end 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. H5 

of the sheltered nook, not unobserved by Let- 
tice, whose eyes shot a green glitter in their di- 
rection, her mouth still scornfully set. 

“ Yes? I am very glad,” she replied, look- 
ing up a moment, without so much as a kind 
smile, and again perusing the page in her hand. 

Lettice, stayed against a tree a few paces off, 
looked away at the sunlit sea, apparently quite 
unmoved by the return of the faultless knight. 
Fraulein Lottchen hoped he had executed all his 
commissions, and amused himself highly without 
spoiling his health. He answered at random, 
annihilated by the fact that Lettice did not care 
what he had done in his absence. “ Fraulein 
Anna’s stockings were exceedingly civil and hos- 
pitable; he had paid considerable duty at the 
Custom House for bringing over the Langtons; 
he had discovered the Frenchman’s neckties in a 
hotel at Paris, and dined with them. Mr. Steven 
Langton was among his luggage at the Montone 
d’Oro. Yes, he had delivered all the letters and 
posted the messages. The Cecil Langton’s were 
most expensive; their little daughters much over- 
weight.” 

“ We all read your speech on Female Disa- 
bilities, Mr. Lester,” Louisa said kindly. “ Even 
Lettice read that.” 

“Ah!” His face lighted up at last, as he 


I 1 6 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

flashed a glance at Lettice; she was an embodi- 
ment of immovable indifference. 

“ And so you changed your mind? ” continued 
Louisa. “ We have hopes that you may yet be- 
come reasonable on the woman question. Won’t 
you come in? You will find Frau von Stein at 
home; she will be so glad to hear that her cali- 
coes have arrived.” 

“ Such a pity to go in yet, just as the sun is 
setting. Miss Marshall, I have many messages 
and parcels for you. I have been seeing your 
people.” 

He had turned and approached her with a 
diffident air as he spoke, looking as beautiful and 
as melancholy as a strayed angel, and quite as 
good. 

‘‘Flirt!” Lettice thought. “Thank you,” 
she said. “ I had a letter from home this morn- 
ing,” which was an invention. 

Then Angela spoke for the first time, as her 
guardian gently disengaged her arms for the third 
or fourth time. “ You will never, never, go away 
again, Carissimo mio? ” 

“ Why, Angela, what about the lovely big doll 
I was to bring? ” he returned. 

“ I don’t want dolls; I want you,” she re- 
plied, lifting her large, dark eyes to his face and 
smiling. Then they told him of her excitement 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. II 7 

at the prospect of his return, and her daily long- 
ings and inquiries for him, while she prattled on 
in her liquid Italian, her arms outspread, her 
sweet flower-face uplifted. The Immaculate’s 
heart was not of stone; he was obliged to catch 
the tiny creature up and embrace her. 

“ You shall never leave me, my pretty bird, 
never. There, there! Now run and play. Are 
all little girls like this? ” he asked in English. 

“ Not all,” Louisa said impressively. 
“ She ” 

“Certainly not,” Lettice interjected; “this 
is an unusually savage specimen. She bites.” 

“ Bites? ” he echoed, glancing at Amy’s hand. 
“ Surely, she did not bite you, Miss Amy? ” 

“No; Angela bit me; your other pet bit 
Amy,” Lettice returned. 

“Oh! — Miss Marshall! Surely, surely not! 
Oh, I hope she did not really hurt you.” 

“ It is nothing. Just a red ring on my arm. 
There is no danger. A dog’s bite is worse,” she 
replied, while Angela began to cry bitterly. 

“Poor old Nep! Of course he must be 
killed,” said his master. “ But Angela; she bit 
you ? ” 

“What a shame to tell on the child! ” cried 
Fraulein Anna; “at least, tell all the history, 
Lettchen.” 


1 1 8 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

“ Oh, I didn’t mind the bite, and I must con- 
fess that I boxed her ears,” answered Lettice, 
laughing. “ Don’t punish her, Mr. Lester, please, 
please.” 

The Immaculate looked grave, as who would 
not? 

“ The dog must at all events be killed,” he 
said, while the great, generous creature leapt 
round him and fawned. 

“ Indeed he shall not! ” cried Amy. “ Poor 
dog, he only did his duty.” 

“ In biting you, my prophetess? ” 

“ Certainly. He saw Angela struck; he 
rushed to help her; I pulled him back. He 
naturally bit me. Then I had to beat him. Poor 
dear old Nep! ” 

“ But I can’t keep a dog that bites.” 

“ Give me the dog, then,” Amy said. “ He 
sha’n’t be killed.” 

“ Come, Angela,” Louisa said, “ where are the 
flowers you were going to give Mr. Lester? 
Fraulein Anna, we poor wretches must go in out 
of the chill.” 

In the general move, Lettice, singing softly 
in a very bad German accent, “ Ich weiss nicht 
zvas soil es bedeuten,” moved languidly in the op- 
posite direction to that taken by the others, 
through an alley shaded by a now leafless pergola. 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. I IQ 

The Immaculate, torn by conflicting emotions, 
and still looking as beautiful as the day, remained 
rooted to the ground, half way between the 
battalion going homeward and the slight figure 
moving through the alley. Angela was too 
much bent on gathering flowers for her adopted 
father to observe his absence; she danced 
joyously on, singing and stooping to pick car- 
nations, until it began to grow dark and she 
found herself back at the house. Then, discov- 
ering his absence, she began to cry piteously, 
whereupon the dog sympathized by opening his 
jaws in a long-drawn howl of inconceivable 
melancholy that alarmed the house. 

Alas! poor faultless knight, left in the mean- 
while gazing distractedly after the fair damsel 
disappearing in the dusk of the alley. He rum- 
pled his hair — with the utmost grace — he smote 
his breast — with elegance — he wished he had 
never been born — but in the most decorous man-, 
ner, without any swear-words, or unbecoming 
gestures. What had he done to offend her? 
Then, as became a gallant knight, he resolved 
to do his devoir, even though it slew him, and 
cast himself prostrate at the feet of his lady, 
avowing his devotion in the choicest words to be 
found in the dictionary. 

“ Ich glaube die Wellen verschlingen,” sang 


120 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


Lettice of the golden locks, pacing the slow time 
of the melody with fairy steps, as she issued from 
the dusky alley into the bright sunset glow on a 
green slope shadowed by murmuring pines. 
Then, turning with slow nonchalance, she faced 
the agitated knight, who was pursuing her swiftly 
through the alley. 

“ Not gone in, Mr. Lester? Best out here, 
isn’t it?” 

“It is divine, Miss Marshall. I — ah! — I 

called on your father — I went on purpose ” 

“ Really? I thought you scarcely knew 
him.” 

“ I love you, Lettice — I loved you from the 
first — on that first sweet day when you came 

down like some heavenly vision ” So the 

Immaculate began. No doubt he continued with 
equal propriety. The scene must have been a 
charming one, especially suited to the lyric stage, 
between a tenor and soprano. Picture the 
despair, the yearning, the pleading of the tenor! 
The response of the soprano on upper C; her 
roulades and trills bringing her down to lower 
B; her staccato coquetry gliding on to the mid- 
dle voice; then the duo, allegro affettnoso; then a 
melodious relenting solo of soprano, joy of tenor 
solo. Final duo, allegro con brio. Curtain. 

“Ha! our good Lestare!” cried Frau von 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


12 1 


Stein later. “He is returned. What a joy! 
And my calico, my needles, my shears? I am 
almost sorry, Hebe Aimee, that I did not let him 
bring the post bedstead. Such bedsteads last 
one’s lifelong. Our good Lestare has been here 
and did not come in? Hein!” 

“ He — is gone for a stroll,” returned Amy, 
“ with Lettice.” 

“ Was that well done? Is that the English 
custom that a young maiden walks alone with a 
gentleman at nightfall?” 

“ It is all right, dear Frau von Stein. Per- 
haps he will tell you some news. He has spoken 
to her parents.” 

“Ach, Aimee! But no, never!” cried Frau 
von Stein, delighted at the prospect of a be- 
trothal, yet disappointed that Amy was not the 
bride, because she had always settled in her wis- 
dom that it was to be so. “ Du meine Giite! 
Ach! this Lettchen! No, nevare was some- 
thing so beautiful. Dock! dock! Can that be 
possible? And I had meant that you should be 
his bride. These English! Dock!” 

“ You will believe in Platonic friendship at 
last,” she replied, smiling, then suddenly turning 
white. For what is this, these ladies, standing 
in the veranda, see approaching in the rays of the 
rising moon? A charming sight, truly. Two 


122 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


figures walking slowly, slowly, and close, oh, so 
close together. The knightly form, as straight 
as a lance, the dark, finely cut face of the Immacu- 
late, the fairylike grace of the young blonde- 
haired girl. Lettice’s face, spiritualized in the 
moonlight, was lifted, half tenderly, half bash- 
fully, to Lester’s dark one, bent down with an 
almost religious fervour on hers; their voices 
came softly on the still air. The brilliant 
allegro movement for two voices in C major had 
doubtless been sung with shakes, cadenzas, and 
fitting solos; the tenor C in alt, the soprano F 
sharp, to what joyous orchestral tumult, roll of 
drums here, pearling of flutes there, always the 
human cry of violins and cellos. Fortissimo! 
Tutti! Curtain. 

Amy turned away to go in, but the child held 

her. 

“ Ach Gott! ” cried the good Frau, with deep 
emotion, “ that is indeed bride and bridegroom. 
Du lieber Himmel! So walked I with my blessed 
Karl in the old sweet days.” 

“ A ch, dass sie ewig griinen bliebe, 

Die sc hone Zeit der jungen Lie be A 

Then the Immaculate, pale with restrained 
feeling and more solemn than ever, uncovering 
his fine head with a bow, said in his sweet, soft 
voice, deepened by pride and joy and fear, to 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


123 


Frau von Stein, ( whose arms were extended to 
receive him, the two simple words, “ Meine 
Braut,” upon which the blushing Lettice was en- 
gulfed in the good Frau’s ample embrace. The 
embrace was politely eluded by the Brautigam, 
who, turning to Amy with a warm hand-clasp, 
murmured, 

“ And so I won my Genevieve, 

My bright and beauteous bride.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


“ The lunatic, the lover, and the poet 
Are of imagination all compact : 

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold — 

That is the madman ; the lover, all as frantic, 

Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.” 

“You are not glad?” Lester asked Amy, 
while Frau von Stein exhausted her enthusiasm 
in embracing Lettice and congratulating her in 
a curious and excited mingling of English and 
German. 

“ I am glad,” she replied. 

“ You don’t seem glad,” he added, with a wist- 
ful look. She laughed a forced laugh. 

“ I am a true Briton, and give my thoughts 
no tongue. Besides, it is no surprise to me; 
and I have not just won a bright and beauteous 
bride.” 

“ Do you wish us joy? ” 

“ With all my heart.” 

The Immaculate was chilled. He could not 
be perfectly happy without sympathy. None but 

Amy Langton could properly share his feelings. 

124 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


125 


Why had she suddenly turned to ice? Poor dear, 
perfect knight ! Angela had sprung into his 
arms, she pressed the flowers she had gathered 
for him against his face, and chatted away in 
her musical Italian like a little bird. He clasped 
her closer and kissed her tenderly. Here was 
sympathy at last. And who should rejoice if 
not this motherless child, about to know a sec- 
ond mother? It was then that the enthusiastic 
Frau, having set Lettice free, descended, like a 
benevolent avalanche, upon the Immaculate, 
folding him and the child in her extensive em- 
brace, and half stifling both of them. Being en- 
gaged is not all jam, not all moonlight strolls, 
poetic raptures, soft whispers beneath lemon- 
scented blossoms, he discovered. Hapless 
knight! 

“ Ach! my good Herr Les'tare, I enjoy me 
so! ” she cried in the English used for the benefit 
of Lettice, “ zat my Lettchen should be your 
bride! You her bridegroom! No, zat is too 
beautiful! I congratulate tousand, tousand 
time. And my linen zat you have brought with, 
and ze needles, would to heaven zat I had also 
let bring ze post bedstead! And you shall be 
married together soon, yes? And I must have 
you for supper to-night. No, you shall not 
dream of going back to ze hot-hell to eat. It 
9 


126 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


is your betrothal, your Braut-fest. We will 
drink Hochheimer and push glasses. Yes? And 
ze little, ze Angela, she will have a mutter now. 
Ach! my little, you shall have cakes. Ze supper 
is brought up. Come in.” 

The resisting bridegroom and bride were ac- 
cordingly led, one in each of the Frau’s kind 
hands, into the dining-room, where her family 
were already gathered for the evening meal. 

“ My ladies and gentlemen,” said Frau von 
Stein, with a beaming face, to the horror of the 
Immaculate, “ permit that I introduce you Heir 
Vivian Lestare and Fraulein Lettice Marshall, be- 
trothed.” 

Then it was that Lester found his devotion 
to the fair creature by his side put to a severe 
test. All the ladies precipitated themselves en 
masse upon poor little blushing Lettice, and over- 
whelmed her with kisses and congratulations; the 
men shook hands with her and wished her joy; 
the ladies also shook hands with the bridegroom, 
wishing him joy. But von Wilden, without the 
slightest warning, clasped him in a fraternal em- 
brace and kissed him on both cheeks. 

The Immaculate did not swoon, neither did 
he swear. But the native Briton rose in revolt 
within him. He blushed deeply and darkly, but 
kept his dignity. 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


127 


“Don’t be such an ass, von Wilden! ” he 
grumbled, with indignation not loud but deep, 
freeing himself from the friendly German’s arms, 
only to fall into those of de Rolleau, whose ig- 
norance of English made Lester’s remark unin- 
telligible to him, and who therefore kissed him 
with effusion, to the immeasurable delight and 
amusement of the Immaculate’s compatriots. 

Hapless knight! Yet one glance at sweet, 
blushing Lettice atoned for the Franco-German 
caresses; he accepted the calmer congratulations 
of the Swede and the Dane, men whom he knew 
but slightly, with proper gravity and resigna- 
tion. 

“ Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast 
On yonder lea, 

My plaidie to the angry airt 
I’d shelter thee.” 

And what are storm, misery, death, in comparison 
with being publicly kissed by a von Wilden and a 
de Rolleau? 

At last they went to table, and ate like or- 
dinary civilized, hungry humanity, until the hock 
went round, and the whole company again lost 
their reason, rose en masse, surrounding the 
Brautpaar , and clinked glasses excitedly against 
those of the newly-betrothed with fine disregard 
of consequences. 

“ What on earth will they do next? ” the Im- 


128 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


maculate wondered, meekly removing the spilt 
wine from his clothes with a serviette. The next 
thing was for von Wilden to spring upon his chair 
and begin to sing, “ Wohl auf! nun getrunken 
den funkelnden Wein,” in which they all joined 
in parts. Lester looked at the exquisite face at 
his side, more lovely than ever in its smiles and 
blushes, and when she lifted her clear, gray eyes, 
smiling at him as if they two were alone to- 
gether, the old glamour descended upon him, 
he forgot the whole world. But, alas! not for 
long. 

Fraulein Anna wished to know if Herr Les- 
tare had hunted the fox and eaten anything be- 
sides beefsteaks during his English visit. He 
had not shot the fox, but had had a splendid run 
of fifty minutes. He could not tell if the fox 
had been finally killed, because, having been can- 
noned into a brook, he was not in at the death. 
Fifty minutes to catch one leettel fox! Du meine 
Gilte! And such a fall! Herr Lester would, of 
course, hunt no more? Ach Himmel! these mad 
English. They have only two amusements; one 
for fine days, when they say, “ We will kill some- 
thing”; one for bad days, when they say, “We 
will kill ourselves ” — in fast trains, on jumping 
horses, steeple-hunts, and the boxes. Then, when 
November fogs come, they all hang themselves. 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


129 


“ It is well arranged,” de Rolleau said, strok- 
ing his beautiful waxed moustache, “ without 
this passion for killing themselves, how would 
the English keep down their overflowing popula- 
tion? The Frenchman, on the contrary, a rarer, 
nobler being, chooses amusements that preserve 
his life.” 

“ That was well said, my friend,” added von 
Wilden; “everything in Nature evolves from 
itself what it needs for the purpose of sustaining 
individual and generic existence. Thus the Eng- 
lishman, finding in himself a tendency to increase 
in number beyond the capacity of his foggy island 
to feed him, evolves an instinct of self-destruc- 
tion; while the Frenchman, fearing lest he 
should, as is very probable, ultimately become 
extinct, preserves his own life with the greatest 
care, and develops a tendency to destroy the 
natural as well as the individual life of others. 
But will this struggle for existence be crowned 
with success? Science informs us that such 
struggles result in the survival of the fittest.” 

“Ha!” cried de Rolleau, with difficulty fol- 
lowing von Wilden’s labyrinthine and nasal 
French. “ You will insult France, von Wilden? 
And I present? I ask the ladies’ pardon.” 

“ Ach! you are making mistakes again, my 
children!” cried Frau von Stein. “ M. de Rol- 


130 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


leau knows that Herr von Wilden regards France 
as the foremost nation in the universe. Yes? 
Herr von Wilden? ” M. de Rolleau’s moustache 
bristled, his eyes glittered. 

“ Pardon, de Rolleau; I regard France as the 
first nation in the world,” replied von Wilden 
in French. “ In vanity,” he added in his native 
tongue, understood by the majority of the party, 
but not by the Frenchman, who had mastered no 
language but his own, obviously the only one 
worth mastering. 

De Rolleau bowed, smiled, twisted his spiky 
moustache, and said that he cherished an unal- 
terable friendship for M. de Wilden. Von 
Wilden replied that M. de Rolleau enjoyed his 
highest esteem. 

“ Vanity,” he added, “ is a property inherent 
to the stupid; its object is to prevent them be- 
ing crushed by the consciousness of their inferior- 
ity and to arouse their aggressiveness against 
those who despise them. It is like the thorns 
upon certain plants in an early stage of growth, 
which serve to defend them from the attacks of 
browsing cattle.” 

“ Tres bien! tres bien! ” said de Rolleau, smil- 
ing. “ M. de Wilden speaks always in philoso- 
pher.” 

There was mischief in von Wilden’s eye, the 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 1 3 1 

gleam of battle in de Rolleau’s; the Swede and 
the Dane began to put in their oars. 

“Come!” cried the good hostess, “we will 
see what our good Herr Lestare has brought us 
from England. Men have brought the things.” 

The vestibule was piled with parcels; two hot 
men with trucks stood wiping their faces at the 
door. The ladies hailed their parcels with loud 
and voluble delight; de Rolleau was affected to 
tears by the sight of his Parisian neckties. Ah! 
why was Paris so cold in winter? mused the ex- 
ile from the only habitable spot on earth. Von 
Wilden was very critical over his books, and 
very exact in paying for them; when the Im- 
maculate said, “Hang the odd shillings!” he 
thought what a pity it was not to let this rich 
Englishman pay the whole score. 

“ What is the matter with you? We seem 
to be strangers all at once,” the Immaculate asked 
Amy, whose reception of a Parisian trinket he 
brought her as a souvenir had been somewhat 
chilling. “ You reject this wretched thing with 
scorn? ” 

“ Not scorn.” 

“ In short, you reject it. Very well! ” Then, 
to Amy’s surprise, the courteous and chivalrous 
Lester dashed the morocco case to the ground, 
and turned angrily away. 


132 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ I wonder why on earth I am such a fool,” 
she mused. “ Is it because I have made the Im- 
maculate Mr. Lester angry? ” The vestibule was 
now empty; she sat alone under the swinging 
lamp on the stairs and looked at the jeweller’s 
case, which had sprung open and shot the brace- 
let out upon the pavement, where it glittered 
in the lamplight. She could not bear to see it 
there, ready to be trampled on by the first 
passer — yet she had not the resolution to pick 
it up. 

“ I would not have it because I care too much 
for him,” she thought, “ and it is best so. I 
am glad he was angry. He ought not to have 
been angry; it was unkind. I wish I had taken 
it quietly. I am glad I didn’t. I am glad he 
brought it. It was most impertinent of him. 
Sometimes I think I hate him. We always dif- 
fered and disagreed, and now we have come to 
the hating point. No doubt I hate him, there- 
fore I dislike to meet him, and therefore I will 
never meet him again. He does not hate me, 
he only disapproves of me. As if it mattered.” 

Did Lettice really care for Lester? How 
lovely beyond her lovely wont she looked that 
night, with the flush of happiness and bashful 
tenderness upon her! 

“Ah! great and glorious power of beauty!” 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


133 


Amy thought, quite unconscious of her own, and 
almost envious of Lettice Marshall’s. “ Still, if 
only she loves him! I think Letty loves him.” 

So Frau von Stein and her pensionnaires 
thought when they observed the blushing and 
sparkling of the pretty face that fascinated them 
all. A beautiful, poetic marriage, all love on both 
sides, everyone, except the Dane, who was smit- 
ten himself, thought, with quiet elation. This be- 
trothal was the most delightful, cheering thing 
that had ever happened at Villa Dole’ Acqua; it 
brought an atmosphere of love and romance, 
youth and poetry, into the limited, stagnant in- 
valid circle. 

Something more than a conviction that she 
was going to make a suitable match, and an ex- 
ultant feeling that she was leading captive a man 
who, in position, mind, and person, was all that 
a girl could desire, inspired Lettice. She really 
loved this man, though she loved herself better. 
Of the first clause Lester was assured, of the pos- 
sibility of the latter he could not dream. Lettice 
was to him a celestial vision, a flawless being; 
she was indeed not Lettice at all, but an impossi- 
ble creature of his own imagination. 

This dreamer walked home in his dream be- 
neath the stars, listening to the hushed song of 
the unseen sea, and the faint whisper of the night 


134 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


wind among boughs of myrtle and lemon, with 
a look of supernatural exaltation on his face. He 
had not gone far when he turned and looked 
back. Lights were not out at Villa Dole’ Acqua. 
That was Lettice’s window. Perhaps she was 
at her evening devotions — overpowering 
thought! How dare he be present even in im- 
agination at that holy rite? Yet she was prob- 
ably praying for him, unworthy him! Sweet, 
sweet Lettice! pure pearl of stainless woman- 
hood! And he dared to raise his thoughts to 
that height; nay, more, he had actually been ac- 
cepted there. She had stooped to him, even him! 
The light went out. The golden head now 
pressed the pillow. “ Happy slumber, rosy 
visions, sweetest and purest ! ” 

He turned homewards, thinking of the even- 
ing’s comedy, while striking a light for his cigar. 
Von Wilden had excelled himself on the piano 
after supper. Then there were tableaux vivants. 
Once, happily seated by Lettice, Lester glanced 
across the room. There sat Amy Langton, look- 
ing very pale and tired, quite unlike herself, her 
head resting against an inlaid cabinet, her hand 
bandaged, the dog’s head on her knee. He had 
forgotten the bite; he did not even know if it 
were serious. The picture was distressing, a 
jarring chord. But Lettice spoke, it was forgot- 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 135 

ten in a moment. Now it rose again to be again 
dismissed in the exquisite tumult that blonde 
vision evoked. 

His face was exalted and spiritualized, his 
eyes brilliant; he was like an enchanted hero of 
old romance, seeing visions unutterable. He 
might wake at any moment from the magic 
trance, but he could never escape the fate to 
which he had bound himself under the spell. 

Sleepy Lettice was considering her wedding 
clothes, how many bridesmaids she would have, 
and what they would wear. 


Die Wahn ist kurz, die Reu ist lang.' 


CHAPTER X. 


“ Wenn du sie im Zorn ertappen konntest, da ware sie am besten 
kennen zu lernen ; da sptingt der versteckte inwendige Mensch he- 
rons !' — Barfussele. 

So great was the severity of the Immaculate’s 
virtue and the sternness of his propriety, he 
would not meet his future wife constantly except 
in her own home. Although she was sufficiently 
chaperoned by Frau von Stein at Villa Dole’ 
Acqua, and was surrounded by her own friends 
and connections, he felt that it would be taking 
a mean advantage of the position to remain any 
longer at Col Aprico, independently of the fact 
that he had already wasted too much time in that 
seductive spot. Wasted? Nay, but he had laid 
the foundations of life’s felicity there; it had only 
taken those few weeks to win the affections of 
the loveliest and best of her sex; wasted was cer- 
tainly an ill-chosen word. But it was impossi- 
ble to return at once; Angela had to be disposed 
of; every day convinced him more and more that 
the charge of this child was no sinecure. 

Next morning the Immaculate took Angela 
136 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


137 


and the dog to Villa Dole’ Acqua; the child chat- 
tered as much as usual, but received fewer re- 
plies. Her guardian was thinking of other 
things; he was no longer so much pleased and 
amused by her pretty ways and caresses; he was 
beginning to think children on the whole rather 
a nuisance. Some dim suspicion of this was 
quickly manifest to Angela’s observant mind. 
Receiving no answer to a five-times repeated 
question, she looked in her guardian’s face with 
the dumb pathos of a slighted dog, and sighed 
dejectedly, relapsing into spiritless silence. 
Could this be her Viviano, or had some wicked 
witch conjured his soul out of his body? — an 
event of probable daily occurrence. Was Frau 
von Stein a witch? Perpetua said she was a 
heretic; a heretic was probably as bad as a witch. 
What was the good of asking Viviano, when his 
soul was gone away? She clasped the big doll 
from England closer, kissed a little more paint 
off her cheeks, and asked her instead, producing 
no change in her glassy stare and fixed red smile. 

They met Frau von Stein coming from her 
poultry-yard with some eggs in her apron and 
a large straw hat over her morning cap. 

“ Frau,” asked Angela solemnly, “ is a heretic 
a witch? Are you a witch? ” 

“Du licber Himmel! no; that is the witch,” 


1 38 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

she cried, laughing and pointing to Lettice, who 
was innocent of any language but her own and 
some wild fragments of French. 

“ Has she stolen Viviano’s soul? ” she contin- 
ued anxiously. 

“ Ha! ha! Herr Lester, do you hear the lit- 
tle? She would make a wit; she would poke a 
fun at you!” cried the delighted Frau in Eng- 
lish. “ Yes,” she added in Italian, “ the witch, 
Lettchen, has stolen away his soul.” 

“ There are no witches except in stories, 
Angela,” Lester replied. “ It is dangerous to 
jest with this child, Frau von Stein. She’s so 
sharp.” 

“ People don’t know when they are be- 
witched,” observed Angela, submitting to the 
caresses of von Wilden and the ladies on the 
veranda, slipping quickly past Lettice, who called 
her to her side with a smile. She went unwill- 
ingly, almost fearfully, suffered Lettice to kiss 
her averted cheek, and wriggled quickly away. 

“ This is naughty, rude behaviour, Angela,” 
her guardian said. “ Go, carissima, and kiss the 
lady, and say good morning in your best Eng- 
lish.” 

“ I don’t like her,” moaned the child. “ She 
beat me — hard.” 

“ This is naughtier and naughtier. You 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


139 


know that you deserved it. Oh, yes, I heard all 
your naughtiness.” 

“ Pardon, Herr Lestare, the little tells true. 
Ach! Lettchen,” she began, lapsing into German, 
“you know you struck first and hard; then she 
bit you,” said Frau von Stein. “ Our Lettchen 
has her quick blood; who is worth anything with- 
out that? The child danced and fell against her, 
and the hot coffee stained her dress and burnt her 
arm. And, Lettchen, you swing your hand round 
hard, hard; the dog saw and would have killed 
her, but our brave Amy caught him by the 
throat. Then this naughty, naughty Angela be- 
came like a mad child and bit the lady.” 

“ She struck hard,” sobbed the child, gather- 
ing from this that her misdeed was referred to, 
creeping up to him to be comforted. 

The Immaculate said nothing in any tongue, 
but he thought in three. Lettice had vented her 
anger upon a helpless child; she had misrepre- 
sented her violence to the child's detriment. 
Lettice was sitting smiling unconsciously by his 
side, looking like an angel. When she saw the 
change on his face, concluding that he was angry 
with Angela, some compunction made her draw 
the little girl towards her. But Lester suddenly 
snatched Angela away and set her on the other 
side of him. 


140 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ My Lettchen,” said, the good Frau in Eng- 
lish, “ ze little is scolded, while she did 
bite; please tell to our good Herr Lestare ze 
trute.” 

“ Oh,” said Lettice, with her sweet smile, 
“ don’t scold the dear child, pray; it had better be 
forgotten. She was very naughty; I was a little 
sharp with her.” 

“ Why did you strike her? ” he asked in a tone 
that chilled her. 

“ Well, since you must know the whole his- 
tory,” she replied, “ Angela was naughty ” 

“ A ch! not naughty; she did eat nozing for 
joy of Herr Lestare’s return,” interrupted Frau 
von Stein. “ She was agitate ” 

“Well! she was frisking about and knocked 
a cup of scalding coffee over me. Before I 
knew what I was about I had given her a little 
slap on the side of her face ” 

“ Ach! my Lettchen! it was greater as you 
did sink. Her ear and sheek was red like blode; 
she did wank — she did stagger, and zen she 
did jump at you.” 

“Yes; then she sprang at me — I was so 
frightened — and nearly made her teeth meet in 
my arm.” 

“ I am very sorry. I am more sorry than I 
can say. Is the wound healing? ” he asked. 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 141 

“ Wound? Oh, the mark soon went,” Lettice 
laughed. 

“ And the dog? ” 

“ The dog? What did he do? Something 
dreadful, I believe; but I was too much occu- 
pied with this little fury to see,” replied Lettice, 
laughing. 

“ Ze dogue? ” said the good Frau. u Ach 
Gott! zat could have been tragic. When he 
see ze little beat, he spring out from ze veranda, 
with fire eyes and growls like sunder. Amy 
in one minute she has her hand on ze great 
black troat ; zen zere is a fight — Du meine 
Gute! a fight! with maiden and dogue. Von 
Wilden, he is zere soon to help, but not until 
ze beast did bite ze maiden. Herr von Wil- 
den blinded ze beast, and Miss Amy — I know 
not what she has done, but ze dogue is her 
servant.” 

“ I am glad I didn’t see it,” added Lettice, 
with a shiver; “ I should have fainted.” 

“ The dog would have killed you,” Lester 
said, with emotion. — “ Poor little thing!” he 
added in Italian. “ If you are naughty, you 
must expect to be beaten, Angela.” 

“ Father never, .never beat me,” whimpered 
Angela. 

“ Ach! das Waisekind! Herr Lester, never, 


10 


142 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


never must you beat zis shild. It will Iiave only 
kindness,” commented Frau von Stein. 

“ Spare the rod and spoil the child,” said Let- 
tice, in her musical voice. “ She is already ruined 
by overindulgence.” 

“ I love not your philosophy, Miss Marshall,” 
remarked von Wilden, who had been sitting si- 
lently in the sunshine, with a philosophical Ger- 
man book, containing sentences two pages long, 
interminable mazes, with the verb at the very 
end. While enjoying this mental relaxation, he 
broke off occasionally to meditate upon the pos- 
sibility of excluding the perception of space from 
the consciousness of infinity, and the probability 
of the on-the-point-of-being, or werdende, having 
no continuity of essence with the being, or 
geworden. While revolving these airy trifles, his 
solid Teutonic brain was further occupied with 
the study of humanity in the concrete, in the 
specimens before him on the veranda. “ I do 
not hold,” he continued, “ that the young human 
intelligence can be well developed by the prin- 
ciples of pain, terror, and disgrace, all of which 
degrade the consciousness and lower the dignity 
of humanity, and all of which should be reduced 
as much as possible to a minimum in the com- 
mon consciousness of the race. Let us, there- 
fore, abolish punishment in the family, and rear 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


143 


human beings uncontaminated by fear and pain, 
when we may safely abolish it in the state. How 
are beautiful forms and colours developed and 
ugly or useless organs lost in the natural and 
gradual process of evolution? The ugly and the 
useless dwindle by disuse and become extinct, 
the beautiful or useful, and these terms are often 
synonymous, on the contrary, develop them- 
selves by constant use.” Soaring into regions 
of impalpable science, he traced the develop- 
ment of a newt’s foot into the human hand. 
“ So,” he continued, “ so shall we follow Nature 
in the artificial process of developing an ideal 
Mcnsch from the rudimentary being” — bestowing 
a prickly-bearded kiss upon the rose-leaf surface 
of Angela’s cheek — “ before us. We will cause 
her to lose by disuse fear and its accompanying 
degradation, and to develop to the utmost the 
opposite principle, love, and all the elevating vir- 
tues of humanity which spring from this one so 
beautiful root.” He maintained, further, that the 
civilization of different periods could be ascer- 
tained by an inquiry into their views of a supreme 
ruling power or powers. Was the great first 
Cause worshipped in terror, with propitiatory 
rites, as a willing inflicter of misery, then were 
the worshippers very low in the scale. Was the 
Supreme Ruler, on the contrary, revered and 


144 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


trusted as a beneficent Being, incapable of cruel- 
ty, then had the worshippers reached a high point. 

Whereupon the Immaculate was bound to re- 
ply; the original subject of discussion became 
gradually lost sight of; literally, playing at 
hide-and-seek behind the trees with Nep, 
metaphorically, circling the globe. Lettice 
listened with her gentle air of appreciation 
and laughed her musical laugh occasionally, 
quite unconscious of what was being said in la- 
boured English. She was wondering if satin 
would still be worn by brides in a year’s time, 
when she was to be married. Von Wilden spoke 
English grammatically, with idioms borrowed 
from every language he knew, and they were 
numerous. He habitually addressed Lester as 
“ young fellow ” and “ you rascal,” under the 
impression that it was usual. He gave vigour 
to his conversation by such expressions as 
“ Zounds,” “ Odd’s my life,” “Crikey,” 
“ Damme.” Again, he would address the Im- 
maculate as “ Old cuss ” or “ Old hoss,” expres- 
sions picked up from a smart American youth. 
If Lester ventured to hint that these terms were 
not heard in the best English, von Wilden, re- 
flecting that the Immaculate was not noble, con- 
cluded that he was most likely unacquainted with 
the aristocratic use of language. 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


145 


The sunshiny morning having slipped imper- 
ceptibly away, Lester, promising to appear at the 
evening’s reception, took his leave. How differ- 
ent to yesterday’s poetic exaltation was to-day’s 
dejection! The serpent appeared early in this 
Eden. Angela trotted happily along, telling her 
companion a long, unintelligible history, not en- 
tirely founded on fact, about Nep, Perpetua, 
Amy, and Sister Avis, when a cry and rush from 
the child, a bound and whine from the dog, 
heralded Amy Langton’s appearance round a 
turn in the pillared drive on her way home. 

“ How is the hand? ” the Immaculate asked. 
“ Let me see it, pray. Are you quite sure that 
it is not serious? Have you had it cauterized? ” 
he continued, with profound solemnity. 

She ungloved a delicate pinky-white hand, the 
back torn in two or three places, already healing. 
The sight produced a dismal howl and drooping 
tail from Nep; he slunk away, looking like a limp 
roll of black fur, and crouched behind a pillar, 
showing nothing but the whites of his eyes. 

“Thank God, it is no worse!” exclaimed 
Lester, fervently. “ How brave of you, Miss 
Amy. The dog might have killed her. Warm- 
hearted people are always warm-tempered,” he 
continued, as he tied up the hand. “ And I am 
afraid that she is not very fond of children.” 


146 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ She is very young and not accustomed to 
children,” replied Amy, rightly judging that 
“ she ” indicated Lettice. 

Having placed Angela in Perpetua’s hands, 
the Immaculate, being in sore need of solitude 
and time for mediation, set off quickly for a sail. 
But soon after he reached the shore he heard a 
light patter of footsteps behind him, interrupted 
by a little gurgle of laughter, and turning saw his 
small charge, clasping her doll and laughing 
roguishly. She was going for a row, too, she 
said, and in spite of commands and remonstrances 
the small despot of five summers had her will. 
The boat was soon gliding over the sea in the 
sunshine, Angela, the doll, and the dog in the 
stern, the Immaculate, half mused and half 
angry, pulling long strokes, facing this curious 
and contented trio. The brightness and beauty, 
the refreshing breath of the salt breeze, the noble 
amphitheatre of hills retreating from the grand 
sweep of the bay, their bases covered with ole- 
ander, aloe, orange, lemon, and myrtle trees, their 
higher slopes with olives, pines, and oaks, their 
bare limestone tops crowned with snow, piercing 
an azure sky, and the pleasantness of shooting 
the boat with strong strokes over the dancing 
wave revived the Immaculate’s drooping spirits. 
A British troopship homeward bound stood in 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


147 


the offing, her white hulk azure with reflected sea 
blue; English-built yachts sailed before the 
light wind; foreign coasting vessels, mostly with 
lateen sails, flitted along; sea-gulls hovered like 
living foam-flakes over the waves. The Immac- 
ulate shipped his sculls, hoisted a sail, lighted 
a pipe, and steered. Angela put a lead-pencil into 
her own mouth and another into the dog’s and 
they smoked too. 

When the boat touched the shore at sun- 
set, Angela was sadly indisposed. Lester, 
bearing- a limp, dishevelled scrap of human- 
ity back to the hotel in his arms, hoped sea- 
sickness was not very bad for children. Per- 
petua would probably scold him roundly for 
letting her go in the boat; but how about von 
Wilden’s beautiful theories of freedom and kind- 
ness? Boating must be given up until Angela 
had evolved the quality of obedience. In the 
course of the afternoon, the doll having fallen 
overboard, Angela sprang after it, and was cun- 
ningly caught by Nep and held above water, 
while the Immaculate, petrified with fear, had 
brought the boat round and hauled the trio in 
as best he could while encumbered with the 
sculls. 

“ What am I to do with the brat? ” he asked 
of Frau von Stein in the evening. 


148 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ Ach! Gott! Herr Lestare, you must loaf her 
and be patient.” 

All black misgivings and wretched doubts 
vanished, all the old glamour fell upon him again 
when he sat that evening by the side of the ex- 
quisite creature pledged to him, gazing in her 
beautiful eyes and hearing her occasional musical 
monosyllables. There was a new something in 
her manner that took the edge from the morn- 
ing’s apprehensions and intensified her charm, an 
innocent pleading, a tender reproach. He hand- 
ed her coffee and cakes, admired the beautiful 
curves of her lips when they broke into soft 
smiles, the delicate tints of her cream-and-blush- 
rose face, the trembling of starlike jewels that 
he brought from Paris in her small, polished 
ears. 

Von Wilden touched the piano with unusual 
skill, gliding as usual into a Volkslied. 

“ Ach, wie ist’s moglich dann , 

Dass ich dich lassen kann , 

Hab dich von Herzen lieb 
Dass glaube mir etc. 

De Rolleau, touched by seeing the young 
couple and hearing von Wilden’s love-laden 
music, thought of Paris and dashed a tear of 
sensibility (of which he was intensely proud) from 
his dark eye. Consenting to sing to von 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


149 


Wilden’s accompaniment, he gracefully ap- 
proached the piano, negligently tossing his hair 
from his brow and placing one hand with easy 
elegance upon his hip, he began in a nasal high 
voice to sing to an air of plaintive monotonous 
melancholy, 

“ Ic-i bas tons les hom-mes pleurent 

with a pathos so profound that Nep, who 
had surreptitiously accompanied his master, ly- 
ing outside the drawing-room door, and unable 
to suppress his emotion, burst into a prolonged 
and heartrending howl, so dismal that it obliged 
several people to bury their faces in their hand- 
kerchiefs, Nep doubtless thinking that if all men 
wept, all dogs were privileged to do likewise. 
Not so de Rolleau, who, abruptly stopping his 
lamentations, uttered a sacre! with more r’s in it 
than could be written down in five minutes, and 
left the room. Miss Ada P. Willis then brought 
out her banjo and sang a plantation song with a 
burden of “Yah, yah, yah,” succeeded by “ Old 
Folks at Home.” The piano was then occupied 
by one of those terrible social evils who play with 
“ great execution.” Her muscular exertion was 
enormous, her arms were laden with bangles that 
clanked like manacles, so that her listeners, espe- 
cially the Germans, returned thanks when, with 


150 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

a final bang on half the keys, she rose. Von 
Wilden’s eyes glared fiendishly, he muttered in- 
jurious observations in six languages. The piece 
being attributed to Liszt, some English person 
murmured, “ Don’t List,” the meaning of 
which, after ten minutes’ deep meditation, pene- 
trated to von Wilden’s brain, and resulted in an 
explosion of laughter just as Frau von Stein 
was relating a pathetic anecdote of “ mine blessed 
Mann.” 

Once more in the quiet light of the eternal 
stars a dreamer walked home in a dream. All 
the odorous air, blossoming earth, and hushed 
sea were again replete with poetry, love, and 
beauty. All lingering doubts and fears were ef- 
fectually stilled by the touch of a talisman he 
carried, a parcel of seductive toys, a peace-offer- 
ing from Lettice to Angela, now asleep in her 
cot, watched by Perpetua, who knitted by a 
shaded lamp and told her beads. Lester, his face 
full of reverent tenderness, looked long and si- 
lently at the rosy child, with her long, dark eye- 
lashes touching her velvety cheek, her dimpled 
arms flung carelessly abroad among her curls. 
Perpetua had hung a crucifix and a holy-water 
vessel above the cot; she watched Veretico with 
jealous eyes and made the sign that wards off 
the evil eye. His lips moved, his hand was 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 15 1 

slightly raised, as if in benediction; he kissed 
the baby brow very softly and stole away. Per- 
petua rose, sprinkled some drops of holy 
water over the sleeper, and made the sign of the 


cross. 


CHAPTER XI. 


“ But there’s a tree, of many a one, 

A single field which I have looked upon, 

Both of them speak of something which is gone : 
% The pansy at my feet 

Doth the same tale repeat : 

Whither is fled the visionary gleam, 

Where is it now, the glory and the dream ? ” 


The romantic episode in the Riviera, flashing 
unexpectedly into the murkiness of chill January 
days-, passed as quickly away, the glory and the 
loveliness swallowed in the dead prose of ordinary 
life. The Immaculate, who had then dreamed 
of no such bright possibilities, felt, on returning 
to England in the bitter wind of a black March 
day, that orange groves, palms, and myrtles, their 
foliage stirred by the breath of young romance, 
their branches swept by the garments of ethereal 
loveliness, were but dreams. 

Lettice had already declined from an ideal to 
an erring creature, with frailties for perfections. 
Compassion had succeeded his early reverence 
for her; the selfishness, sharp temper, and flip- 
pancy, so manifest in her, were but partly atoned 
152 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


153 


for by youth and faulty education. He would 
mould his ideal wife from this plastic young ma- 
terial. Love would chisel something lovely 
from such unsullied youth. Yet he was sad, as 
he leant over the boat’s side and saw the cold, 
gray Dover cliffs. Hapless Immaculate! 

Lettice would have been surprised, even 
amused, at the concern her small frailties caused. 
A being so charming had a right to frailties, she 
thought. That this unreasonable man would 
think of her except with the blindest devotion, 
or that she had, or ever would have, duties 
towards him, never struck her. The Immaculate 
naturally fell in love with her at first sight; men 
always did; as he was agreeable and eligible, she 
accepted him. It was high time to marry at 
nineteen; rejecting suitors, she reflected, with a 
prudence for which her adorer did not give her 
credit, is all very well in early youth, when whole 
ranks of men surrender at one glance, but on 
the verge of old maidhood no discreet girl should 
reject a good offer. 

But she reckoned without her host in assum- 
ing that her will was to regulate Lester’s actions, 
as she found before the brief Riviera days had 
passed. 

Rocca Vecchia is a mediaeval stronghold on 
a bare mountain crag, within a drive of Col 


154 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


Aprico. There the Villa Dole’ Acqua circle pic- 
nicked one day. Angela having done her best to 
fall down an oubliette in the gloomy ruin, the Im- 
maculate, catching her just as she was disappear- 
ing, had forbidden her to leave his hand again. 
Lettice and Amy wished to climb an eminence 
crowned with pines, whence an extensive view, 
including the hilltops of Corsica, lying like pur- 
ple gems in the sea, was visible. Having reached 
this desired spot, the two girls, with their knight 
and his two pets, sat beneath the soughing pines, 
where it was pleasant and airy on this sunny 
March afternoon. Gum oozed from the bark of 
the wind-rocked pines, filling the air with healthy 
fragrance; down through the dazzle of sunlight, 
over rounded, verdured hills, out upon a sea in 
which every imaginable jewel seemed slowly dis- 
solving in a flux of liquid gold, it was delightful 
to look; a barren, castled crag on the right, a 
wood of chestnut and oak, flushed with purple 
buds, on the left, limestone mountains rising pre- 
cipitously behind them, completed the picture. 
All this beauty and repose made them silent, even 
Angela and the dog. 

“ Now, I know what those sails remind me 
of! ” Lettice exclaimed, starting from a reverie, 
“ the Lebensschiffe at Carrie’s wedding. 

Some boats were tacking, so that the sails, 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


155 


broadside to the west, would be sheets of glory; 
then, at right angles to the first tack, they were 
shadowy gray. 

The Immaculate remembered the occasion. 
“ It was our first meeting,” he said; “you were 
then a child with golden hair.” 

“ That stupid man with his walnut-shell ships! 
And that boy whose candle went out! He died 
before the year was over,” Lettice said, pet- 
tishly. 

“ There must have been some devilry in it. 
How little I then guessed that I was standing 
so near my fate,” said the Immaculate tenderly. 

“Ah! but our ships didn’t sail together,” 
Lettice objected; “ yours ran after Amy’s. Do 
you remember, Amy? ” 

Amy had disappeared with the child; they 
rose and followed her. When they descended 
the hillside, their conversation fell on Angela. 
“ It is cruel to spoil her so, Vivian,” Lettice 
said. “ She will have to go out in the world and 
earn her bread! How will she be fitted for 
roughing it? ” 

Lester’s face changed. “ Why should she 
rough it? ” he asked. 

“ She has nothing,” Lettice replied, a little 
frightened. 

“ She has me.” 


156 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ And at your death? ” 

“ She will not be forgotten.’' 

“ Adopted children are a mistake,” she said 
in a hard, imperative tone. 

“ I am sorry you think so. I hoped that you 
would have been a mother to this child,” he re- 
turned. “ The adoption was fully discussed at 
the time, dearest. Your father approved. I 
asked him to make it plain to you.” 

She replied that he had no right to burden her 
with such a responsibility; and he was silent, re- 
gretting that he had not better succeeded in mak- 
ing her understand what she was doing at the 
time of the engagement. 

“ In accepting each other, surely we accepted 
each other’s responsibilities,” he added, after a 
time. Lettice replied with flushed cheeks and 
cold voice that she could not and would not be 
bothered with other people’s children. At this 
stage they were joined by the rest of the party 
and returned to Col Aprico, the Immaculate in 
a high state of misery. It was hard upon Let- 
tice, who seemed not to have understood the po- 
sition, which he had so carefully explained to 
her parents along with other matter-of-fact de- 
tails. He blamed himself for expecting so much 
of her. But what could he do at this eleventh 
hour? It was his last evening, spent at Villa 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


157 


Dole’ Acqua, where supper was always a trial to 
his feelings. Fraulein Anna’s knife was con- 
stantly disappearing between her charming lips; 
Frau von Stein too ostentatiously enjoyed her 
food and too frequently employed both knife and 
fork to give point to her conversation; the Ger- 
man-Swiss girl used hers as signalling instru- 
ments — von Wilden! — and de Rolleau! — Let a 
•veil be drawn; people’s feelings must be re- 
spected. At all events, supper at Villa Dole’ 
Acqua was a penance hardly counterbalanced by 
the enchanting presence of Lettice. Yet had she 
not been present the pain would have been less; 
these sins against refinement were insults to that 
pure pearl of womanly excellence, a view of the 
question that would have intensely amused the 
fair lady herself. 

To-night Lettice was pleased to manifest her 
displeasure by a haughty and chilling manner, 
receiving all her fiance's attempts at conversa- 
tion with crushing monosyllables. Her mono- 
syllables were a gift entirely her own; with them 
she could assent, dissent, kindle to enthusiasm, 
chill to despair, enchant with rapture, or crush 
with disdain. Compared with the heavy ord- 
nance of conversation, these monosyllables were 
as a needle-gun of delicate precision and long 

range. The needle-gun soon silenced the Im- 

11 


i 5 8 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


maculate’s fire, reducing him to deepest gloom 
and despondency. But the table penance over, 
he forgot everything save the necessity of loving 
Lettice and being a little loved in return. There- 
fore, when they left the dining-room, he took a 
shawl from the vestibule, folded her in it, and 
drew her silently, irresistibly, into the veranda, 
using sufficient gentle force to take away the 
young lady’s breath — figuratively, not literally — 
and to impress her with a wholesome conviction 
that he was not to be trifled with; a silken thread 
was not for her; she must master or be mastered. 
Blind youth! Drawing her hand through his 
arm, he made a beautiful, tender little apology 
for his rough words at Rocca Vecchia, and im- 
mediately lost his temporary ascendency over 
her, winning scorn and wrath instead. 

She shed a few tears; he thought himself a 
brute. He succeeded, however, in drying the 
tears, and in riveting his bonds more firmly than 
ever. Then he spoke gently of his promise to 
the dead, sacred, impossible to break, a promise 
given when he was unfettered by other ties. He 
knew that he had asked and expected too much 
of her; perhaps he ought not to have asked it; 
but it was now impossible to go back. 

“ Dearest,” he added in his velvety voice, 
“ help me bear this burden. It is very sweet 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


159 


to me. It may be even sweeter to you one day. 
The child is dearer to me than any one on earth — 
except yourself. She will wind herself round 
your heart one day.” 

“ And that is why I hate the brat,” the fair 
damsel reflected; but she only said that she 
would “ think it over.” 

It was enough for the Immaculate that Let- 
tice was gracious again and assented to tender 
nothings he said about their approaching part- 
ing and future meeting, and listened contentedly 
to other agreeable trifles. What could be more 
delightful? Young lovers strolling among 
moonlit orange and myrtle trees in an Italian 
garden, within sound of the sea. The very birds 
nestled among the foliage might have envied the 
young human pair. Von Wilden, looking at the 
moon, an eclipse of which was due, caught sight 
of them and murmured some of Riickert’s love- 
lyrics instead of measuring the eclipse, which was 
just beginning, thinking possibly that love-mak- 
ing was more amusing than astronomy. Frau 
von Stein, peeping through the half-drawn cur- 
tains, was quite sure of it. What did the good 
Frau care for the moon? She cared much for 
humanity, even more for German -propriety, 
which exacted a watchful gaze on the most in- 
timate moments of a Brautpaar, such as now 


i6o 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


moved in the soft odours and tender moonlight 
of that orange garden. 

When the Immaculate bid his friends at Col 
Aprico good-bye, affectionately kissed by Frau 
von Stein — but not a second time by von Wilden 
and de Rolleau — receiving a cordial hand-clasp 
from Amy Langton, with a frank “ See you again 
soon,” and a polyglot valediction from the re- 
maining ladies, he thought that friendship was a 
beautiful and pleasant thing, pleasanter and far 
more restful than love. Recreant knight! He- 
retical Immaculate! No longer can he be called 
perfect. 


CHAPTER XII. 


“ A little child, a limber elf, 

Singing and dancing to itself, 

A fairy thing with red, round cheeks, 

That always asks and never seeks, 

Makes such a vision to the sight 
As fills a father’s eyes with light.” 

One warm, still June afternoon Lester and 
his little ward, just set down from a hansom, 
and followed of course by Nep, were walking 
slowly on the hot flags, now beginning to cool 
in the shade, by the trees clustering round the 
little Church of the Angels. 

“ I wiss ou had a half holiday every day,” 
Angela said in her best English. “ I want to 
see ze beasts again and give buns to ze bears.” 

“ We can go on some Sunday. But would 
you not rather see your friend Miss Amy than the 
lions and tigers? ” 

“ I sink I would yike bose at one time.” 

The relation between these two human beings 
was daily becoming closer and more delightful. 
As Angela absolutely declined to stay away from 

Lester at Croft Hall, for the present they occu- 
161 


1 62 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

pied some sunny, bright rooms near one of the 
parks, where the Immaculate spent much of his 
time. It was pleasanter than the solitude of 
chambers. He wrote and Angela played with her 
dolls in the same room, each having come to a 
mutual understanding of the wants of the other. 
The child took an interest beyond her years in all 
he did. When he went to the House of Commons, 
she understood that he was busy pursuading peo- 
ple to build better houses for poor people, to 
prevent women and little children from working 
too hard, and to see the defence of Great Britain. 

Soon after her arrival in England, Angela con- 
trived to fall dangerously ill of a malady which 
nearly proved fatal. All through one night, when 
she was said to be sinking, Lester held the moan- 
ing, half-conscious child, who turned and clung 
to him through it all, in his arms. Not till then 
did he imagine how much a child can be loved, 
though it is scarcely necessary to observe that 
the Immaculate, perfect at all points, proved him- 
self a first-rate father and a matchless sick nurse. 
As for Miss Angela, she could not have hit upon 
a better way of endearing herself to him than 
-this little excursion deathwards; it was a stroke 
of genius. The closer she twined round his heart, 
the more surprising Lettice’s aversion for her ap- 
peared to him. 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


I6 3 


At first he waited for an invitation which 
never came to take the child to see Lettice. 
Then he asked leave to bring her, when Lettice 
was anything but gracious. Once Mrs. Cecil 
Langton said openly it was a pity the child had 
not been removed by her illness; whereupon 
Lettice laughed her musical laugh and observed 
that she had yet to run the gauntlet of half a 
dozen infantile maladies. At this observation 
Lester’s face changed; he said nothing, but 
thought much. In proportion as Lettice became 
jealous of the child, she grew exacting to him. 
Absolute homage was what she demanded. Blind 
Immaculate! No suspicion of her jealousy 
crossed his mind. But once, when severely 
scolded for not appearing at the Marshall’s in 
the height of Angela’s illness, he was provoked 
into saying that a child’s life was more important 
than a woman’s whim. 

“ Has it come to this? ” cried Lettice, burst- 
ing into tears. “ Men always change, but 
I did not think you would cease to love me so 
soon.” 

“ And I did not think,” retorted the Immac- 
ulate (whose virtues appear to be on the decline), 
for he was too indignant to be touched even by 
tears, “ that a woman could be so selfish as to 
grudge anything to a dying child.” 


164 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ You knew I was selfish, and yet you loved 
me,” she replied, with tearful reproach. 

“ It is because I love you so truly that I want 
you to be unselfish/’ he returned gently. 

“ If you really loved me, you would be con- 
tent with me. If I were unselfish and prim and 
good, I should be somebody else. Why did you 
choose me if you wanted somebody else? You 
had better have left me alone.” 

“ Do you really think so? ” he asked, with 
a very grave face. “ Is it your wish that we 
should part? ” 

Lettice was* startled; she was not quite as 
hard as she seemed. Annoyed at his absence for 
the sake of a sick child, she had not realized, 
though she had been told, that the little thing 
was in danger. In reproaching him for his pre- 
occupation, she expected passionate excuses for 
his negligence instead of grave rebuke for her 
selfishness. She wanted blind adoration; it was 
painful to find that a man could love her and still 
retain possession of his senses; still more painful 
to discover that he was ready to take her wild 
words in earnest. A pitiful look came over her 
sweet face; she turned to him with a gesture 
that went to his heart. “ Vivian!” she cried, 
“ you are not going to leave me? ” 

This brought him penitent to her feet. He 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 1 65 

had been a brute, everything that was bad. She, 
startled from her self-absorption by fear of los- 
ing him, was sweeter to him than she had ever 
been; glamour once more fell upon him; how 
had he been found worthy of the love of so ex- 
quisite, so peerless a being? Yet she was a con- 
stant tribulation, perplexity, and cross in his life; 
and yet, before the magic episode at Col Aprico, 
life had been more blessed than he knew, or than 
it would ever be again! 

“ Gliick ohne Ruh , 

Liebe , bist du” 

said Goethe, who certainly ought to have known, 
considering his experience. 

On that night Lester formed the conclusion 
that Lettice and Angela could not live under one 
roof; yet he was bound to both. To keep Angela 
would be to cherish a source of constant dissen- 
sion; to send her away would be cruel; the child 
was too young to be given to strangers. Be- 
sides, he had the usual masculine prejudice 
against boarding-schools. Revolving these 
thoughts as they walked, he looked down upon 
the upturned face of his little ward and met her 
innocent smile of perfect childish confidence. He 
pressed the tiny hand in his own, thinking that if, 
instead of duty, it were choice, the exquisite 
grace and capricious beauty of Lettice would 


66 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


have small chance against Angela’s innocent lov- 
ing confidence. Perhaps poor Lettice’s jealousy 
was justified, after all. 

“ Not at home,” the maid who opened the 
door of No. 9 with a smile for Angela said. 

“ No one at home? ” he asked. 

“ Miss Grace is at home, but she sees no 
one.” 

“ But Amy, where is Amy? ” asked the child 
eagerly. 

“ Miss Amy is engaged, miss.” 

“ Say her Angela is come,” said the child, 
bounding into the hall in perfect certainty of a 
welcome. 

“ Come back, carina,” the Immaculate said in 
Italian; “you are rude.” 

“ The drawing-room is empty, sir; please go 
in,” the maid said. “ Miss Amy is in the study. 
When she hears who it is, she may like to see 
Miss Wingrove.” 

So he followed the child into the familiar, 
friendly room, in which he had not been for ages. 

It is not to be supposed that a being so 
beautiful, so pleasant, and so courteous as the 
Immaculate was anything but a social success. 
He went much into society before his engage- 
ment, and as much as circumstances would per- 
mit afterwards. But the Marshalls were not in 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 1 67 

any set he cared for. His people had, of course, 
called on Lettice; Lady Evelyn Lester, an aunt, 
had done more, but with little success; this gray- 
haired lady could not understand being patron- 
ized and snubbed by her nephew’s fiancee, an un- 
derbred girl of nineteen. 

“Poor Vivian!” his family said when the 
engagement was alluded to. “ One would have 
credited him with better taste.” 

Protected by the “ Not at home,” Amy had 
chosen to work in the pleasant drawing-room by 
the open window. While writing there, the 
short, imperious rap of the postman had been 
heard; she had run out into the hall, taken a 
letter from the box, and read it more than once. 
When Angela and Lester came in she was sit- 
ting upon a low seat with the letter in her hand 
and an expression of supreme emotion in her face. 
Raising her eyes at their entrance, she regarded 
the visitors with a moved and preoccupied face. 
Sitting thus, in a thoughtful posture, every curve 
and line of her figure expressing the emotion vis- 
ible in her face, the afternoon sun lighting her 
bright hair, the simple folds of her dress falling 
gracefully round her, she was an impressive, an un- 
forgetable picture. To the Immaculate it was a 
new revelation of Amy, filling him with some 
awe and much trust and admiration. “ Our 


l68 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

prophetess has grown into a beauty/’ he thought, 
while some seconds passed, during which she held 
both from addressing her by that look in which 
they had no part; then her face changed; An- 
gela sprang to her neck; the Immaculate apol- 
ogized for the intrusion; the child chatted gaily 
in her own Italian, pulling Amy’s face down to 
her and making conversation impossible for some 
minutes. 

Perfectly dressed in white, with all proper 
finishings and refinements, the pretty child was 
slighter and taller, having shot up since her ill- 
ness, and become pale and large-eyed. 

“ Do you think she is quite strong? ” her 
guardian asked, taking the small wrist in his fin- 
gers and saying that it grew daily more slender. 
He was comforted by the assurance that she was 
only outgrowing the chubbiness of infancy and 
showed every appearance of health. Presently 
he burst out in French with, “ Somebody dislikes 
children, especially this one.” 

“ Somebody is only a child herself. A time 
will come when she will turn to them.” 

“ So that one need only wait? ” 

“ Quite so. Besides, where there is real and 
true affection, dislikes and differing tastes are 
trifles.” 

“Real and true affection!” He looked at 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 169 

the unconscious child in silence for a few mo- 
ments, and Amy was seized with a fear lest 
further revelations should come. “ I must say- 
one thing,” she added quickly, “ somebody is 
the only creature who should be aware of these 
things.” 

“ I acknowledge the rebuke.” Yet he had 
not told her, and had scarcely dared tell him- 
self, the real trouble. But he was hurt, 
thinking, with the unreason of his sex, that 
she had lost interest in him and repulsed his con- 
fidence. 

“ Do you remember a Kempis? ” she said 
gently, “ Nothing is hard to Love.’ ” 

He remembered a Kempis, also Coleridge, 

“ And then he knew it was a fiend, - 
That miserable knight.” 

“ After all,” he said, “ there is something bet- 
ter than Love, Duty,” an axiom she was sorry to 
hear just then. 

“ Something of importance has happened to 
you to-day,” the Immaculate said later on. 

“ Yes,” she replied, colouring, “ of very great 
importance.” 

Misinterpreting the blush, he rose and went to 
a table to look at some flowers. “ She is going 
to be married,” he thought. 

“ May I congratulate you? ” he asked, re- 


170 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

turning after a short silence with the utmost 
propriety and equal to all conventionalities, as 
usual. 

“ It certainly is a subject for congratulation, 
Mr. Lester. The struggles, uncertainties, and 
terrors of my profession are at an end.” 

“Ah!” he thought most mournfully. “She 
has come to her senses; the true woman is 
awake — too late.” 

. “ I am so glad for my mother’s sake. You 
know our narrow circumstances; I shall be able 
to help her substantially now. I have told no 
one yet. The engagement is but just com- 
pleted.” 

“ Thank you,” the Immaculate returned with 
a dejected air; “ I am so glad to be the first to 
hear it.” Yet he looked singularly wretched. 

“ Only a woman,” she continued, “ a woman 
who has gone through such struggles as I have, 
can quite sympathize with me. Men take 
these things as matters of course; to women it 
is a great thing, a new life.” 

“ Surely it is new life to men, perhaps even 
more than to women,” he objected with great 
humility. “ W ell ! I congratulate you with all 
my heart. I cordially hope that you will be 
happy.” 

“ I shall be, I must be, happy. Filled with 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 171 

such duties and responsibilities, life can not fail 
to be happy. I am very happy already.” 

The Immaculate’s beautiful face was gray and 
anxious; he wondered why he felt so wretched. 
Was it because he knew that no one was good 
enough for her? “ Is it — pardon my curiosity, 
dear prophetess ” — he asked, “has it been long on 
the — ah — under consideration? ” 

“ About three months — not longer.” 

“Ah!” Many obscure things now became 
clear to the Immaculate, one of them, that he 
had made a serious mistake three months ago, 
when he might have won a prize — but this he 
quickly banished. “ I thought,” he remarked 
weakly, “ I thought there was a something. You 
will not ” — he added in a choking voice — “ you 
will not forget old friends, I hope? ” Poor, 
faultless knight! His beautiful dark eyes were 
very wistful as he looked up. 

“ Mr. Lester! Do you know me so little as 
to ask? I never forget friends, old or new. Do 
I, Angela? ” taking the little girl, who had been 
looking at pictures till she was tired, on her 
knee. 

“ Fagon de parler, Miss Amy. One asks be- 
cause one wants to be reassured. When does — 
h’m! — it take place? ” 

“ Almost immediately. In a week or two, I 


172 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


suppose,” she replied carelessly. “ But tell me 
of yourself. What you are writing — thinking — 
doing. We hear whispers of a Private Bill.” 

“ You are too good; my affairs will wait,” he 
returned, with deeper and deeper melancholy. 
“ Who — who is he? Do I know him? ” 

“ Of whom do you speak? Do you mean the 
secretary? Because she’s a woman. They are 
all women.” 

The Immaculate’s brain turned like a hum- 
ming-top. “ Who are all women? ” he gasped 
faintly. “ There must be a man somewhere, even 
in a marriage.” 

“ But what marriage are you thinking of, 
Mr. Lester? ” Amy cried in desperation. “ Are 
you alluding to your own? ” 

“ I was speaking of yours.” 

“ But why should you begin to think of such 
an improbability all at once, a propos of nothing? 
I spoke of a Private Bill.” 

“ I was thinking of your future husband.” 

“ As if I should marry a Private Bill! If you 
think I am going to be married, Mr. Lester, you 
are mistaken. I was referring to my engage- 
ment as assistant surgeon to the New Hospital 
for Women in Great Windsor Street.” 

“Well! I am ” cried the Immaculate, 

with a shout of laughter. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


“ Oh ! and is all forgot — 

Our childhood’s innocence, 

Our school-day lovers, 

The friendship 

No change could recompense ? ” 

It was now five years since Amy Langton had 
been banished from her mother’s house by the 
fraternal decree, five industrious, eventful years, 
during which she had scarcely even been in the 
neighbourhood. It was impossible to revisit the 
scene of old troubles and joys without some ela- 
tion. In the meantime she had reached the am- 
bitious summit, which in old days had seemed 
but a far-off dream; she had assaulted and car- 
ried the outworks of the medical profession. To 
her family she was still “ that Amy,” that incon- 
venient and uncomfortable member of the family, 
whose proceedings were such an annoyance to 
right-minded people. 

On her return to England in April, when she 
was admitted to the old home in Angel Road, 
she had set to work in good earnest to obtain 

professional employment. A plate inscribed 
12 173 


174 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ Amy Langton, M. D., Consulting physician. 
Hours, 9 till 5,” had been set up in a house in 
town, in which she had a small consulting-room 
on a third floor. Here she found ample leisure 
for study, especially of chimneys, but few patients 
and fewer fees. But she lived on hope and 
went to and from Angel Road with a cheerful 
spirit and undaunted courage until the want 
of rent for the room and the near prospect of 
the hospital appointment led her, in the begin- 
ning of June, to remove her plate and her pres- 
ence. 

Grace had permanently left Angel Road, 
which she had not revisited since leaving it to 
become a novice until her return from the 
Riviera, when she spent a few days there. Be- 
fore taking final vows, she had been visited by 
her mother, her sisters, and Cecil; Cecil had not 
opposed her desire after the first; he thought 
that, if Grace did not intend to marry, her best 
plan was to immure herself respectably for life. 
He therefore bade his sister farewell with gentle- 
manly composure, reflecting, as he handed his 
weeping mother into a cab, “ At least one of them 
is off our hands.” 

Not that his sisters’ care and maintenance in 
any way depended upon him, each having her 
own tiny fortune; being “ on his hands” con- 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 1 75 

sisted apparently in sharing his mother’s roof 
with him — for this occurred before his marriage 
— and being ready to perform those thousand 
and one little services sisters are so ready to give 
and brothers often so careless in receiving. 
Julius had been less tolerant. He disliked con- 
ventional life, looking at sisterhoods, from a med- 
ical point of view, as hotbeds of hysteria and men- 
tal and bodily weakness. He therefore did his 
best to dissuade his sister from the religious life, 
but the more he argued the more firmly was 
Grace set upon it, her principal aim being to 
mortify her “ vile body.” Still Julius considered 
Grace’s errors respectable; he had never been in 
open rupture with her as with Amy. Julius was 
known to be the writer of that clever pamphlet 
on London water, illustrated by cuts of creatures 
revealed by the microscope in those crystal 
deeps. He had just begun that series of papers 
on the perils of adulterated food and the diseases 
hidden in milk', which resulted in the starvation 
of many worthy people, who, finding danger lurk- 
ing in every drop of water and all milk foods, 
lived upon eggs, oysters, and salads, with Rhine 
wine imported straight from the growers. It 
was his article upon the methods of cooking wines 
for export and that on sewage contamination of 
oyster and water-cress that deprived those un- 


176 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


fortunates of their last support and resulted in 
their untimely death. 

“ And yet,” Mrs. Langton would plaintively 
say in moments of confidence to her step-son, 
“ though your sisters are all pretty, they never 
marry, and the youngest is twenty. Of course, 
Stephen, no one expects Grace to marry; nuns 
never do. At Coldwell they see nobody but their 
assistant priest, who could not possibly marry 
them all; their priest, Grace tells me, is married. 
Nor could one expect any thing from Amy, al- 
though at one time I had hopes — but he is en- 
gaged to Lettice Marshall. But I did think that 
the others would do something.” 

“ Do something? ” echoed Stephen. “ I 
thought you disliked ” 

“ In the marriage way, Stephen. They are 
both handsome girls and not at all clever; they 
are not even too religious; indeed, I often have 
to insist upon Georgie’s going to church on Sun- 
day. One of them plays, the other sings; they 
know nothing and have no opinions whatever. 
I do all I can for them. They make all their own 
dresses at home; we save in every way to go into 
society. ‘ Do marry those girls, mother/ Cecil 
says, or Julius begins, ‘ Mother, when are those 
girls going to marry? Imagine! Four unmar- 
ried daughters!’ I try to bear it, Stephen; no 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


1 77 


doubt it is a just punishment for my sins. They 
say it is catching if one goes off.” 

“ Well,” he returned, “ we have recently had 
one marriage in the family. Let us hope it may 
be catching.” 

“ Cecil’s marriage is out of the family,” said 
the much-enduring mother. “ For a son is not 
married from one’s house, nor does his wife pro- 
vide for him. Everything is falling, and what 
we should do without your generous help, 
Stephen, I can not think.” 

“ I wish it were more,” the head of the fam- 
ily replied, “ but of course I must think of my 
children. Steenie will be going to Cambridge; 
Jack Eton’s bills are not small. Well, you know 
all the expensive items. And 1 hope your divi- 
dends will go up again before long.” 

It was after this conversation that Mrs. Lang- 
ton returned to Angel Road to receive the an- 
nouncement of Amy’s appointment in the fol- 
lowing terms: “ It is the crown of success. La- 
bour and competence without struggle. All my 
patients will be women; I don’t like attending 
men. Mrs. St. Luke would never have accepted 
me, for all the governors and trustees in the 
world, if she had not been convinced of my ca- 
pacity. Mother, dear, do be glad. You need 
not leave this house. I can guarantee the rent 


178 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


for you now,” she added. Yet Mrs. Langton 
wept on hearing of the appointment, because, she 
said, it seemed to make the thing more real. Her 
child was now fairly committed to this career; 
there was no longer any chance of her withdraw- 
ing in disgust. “ She will be shut up in a horrid 
place full of sick people and smelling of oiled silk 
and drugs, and never see any society/’ she ob- 
served to Georgie in confidence. “ Just as she 
is beginning to be really pretty and to take an 
interest in her dress! ” 

“ It is a pity, mother, but it might be worse, 
and she will be at least provided for,” replied 
Georgie. “ No one could possibly dream of mar- 
rying so clever and strange a girl as Amy. What 
can she talk of? What can she do? She has no 
time to learn tennis ” — then new; golf was then 
scarcely known out of Scotland; ladies’ cricket 
and bicycling still in the womb of time. “ She 
reads no novels but old ones ” — Ibsen was then 
unknown, Zola untranslated. “ She dislikes gos- 
sip, she won’t listen to risky stories and jokes. 
She is always so particular and prim with men. 
She can't flirt. She knows nothing of the peer- 
age or society scandals, or the private life of lit- 
erary people and actresses. And of china and 
chiffons she knows nothing and cares less. What 
is the use of alluding to jokes out of the last 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


179 


burlesque to her? She objects to talk of causes 
celebres, especially divorce cases. As for music, 
she didn’t even know that Usignuola had run 
through two husbands’ fortunes and been di- 
vorced. Now, mother, what could a man say to 
Amy? Nature intended her for an old maid. 
Let us be thankful that she is so comfortably 
shelved.” 

“ You talk very fast, my dear,” Mrs. Langton 
observed, “ and I am never quite sure whether 
you are in earnest or jest.” 

She admitted that her child’s pecuniary help 
was timely, though it was painful to take it from 
a daughter. “ But you don’t consider the pleas- 
ure and pride of helping, mother,” Amy replied. 

The first thought of Amy’s heart was to fly 
to Louisa Stanley and discuss — for of course she 
knew — the delightful news. She watched Louisa 
as we watch some rare and exquisite blossom, 
knowing it must soon fall, trying to prolong its 
frail existence to the utmost. Louisa had in- 
spired the enthusiasm of her life and fallen a mar- 
tyr to it; she had fed her with bright hopes and 
noble dreams; she had given her a home and 
affection when her own cast her out. If Jona- 
than’s love was “ passing the love of women,” 
many women’s friendship far overpasses the love 
of men. 


i8o 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


Louisa’s rooms were always full of girl-stu- 
dents; to-day she was found alone, busy drawing 
diagrams for her student friends. 

“ So glad you came. I’ve been longing to 
talk it over,” was Louisa’s first word. 

“ Pray talk,” said Amy, wondering why 
Louisa’s delicate face became crimson. But 
Louisa went on drawing in silence, with a chang- 
ing colour. “I wonder how you will like it?” 
she asked after a time. 

“ How can you wonder? The conclusion is 
foregone.” 

“ I hope you will like him, Amy,” with another 
wave of colour and a furtive glance. 

“ But who am I to like? ” 

“ Well! — the — happy events.” 

“ Happy, indeed! The star of the Langtons 
certainly is in the ascendant. My sister Georgie 
and Charlie Lovelace are finally engaged and the 
wedding day fixed, after five years of — flirtation — 
philandering, what you will. Algernon writes to 
tell us that he has found a gold mine, after all 
his failures and losses. Julius has an appoint- 
ment that has never been given to a man of his 
years before ” 

“ And Amy has an appointment that has 
never been given to a woman of hers before. All 
is coule-ur de rose. I am glad Georgie’s marriage 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 1 8 1 

is settled. I have heard that Mr. Lovelace is 
engaged to Lettice and poor Mr. Lester left to 
wear the willow. I am sorry for our Bayard, 
Amy. He will never be happy with Lettice.” 

“ Oh ! marriage is such a lottery, Louie. 
What a mercy that you and I have never been 
tempted to draw a number!” 

“ The numbers are not all blanks.” 

“ Nearly all. Every day I am more convinced 
of it. Advanced women must not marry. How 
many a fine capacity has been smothered in do- 
mestic frivolities! With advancing years I ap- 
proach your views of celibacy ” 

“ My views!” 

“ Have you forgotten your order of secular 
celibates devoted to science? ” 

“ I remember talking a good deal of non- 
sense at odd times, Amy,” replied Louisa, with 
a quaint little smile. 

“ But this is one of the few sensible things 
that you ever said. Just as a woman’s mind is 
developing and she is making progress, some hor- 
rid man comes, and she throws everything to the 
winds for him. In four years she can talk of 
nothing but babies, servants, and clothes.” 

“ No, no. Look at Mrs. St. Luke.” 

“ An exception. Let us found a society for 
the suppression of matrimony among the ” 


182 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ The Blues? ” 

“ Yes, the Blues.” 

“ Impossible.” 

“ Why? ” asked Amy, half laughing, half seri- 
ous, and expecting some merry quip from her 
friend. 

“ Because Edward Graham and I are going 
to be married next month,” replied Louisa, drop- 
ping her pencil and looking up. “There! the 
murder is out,” she added, laughing. 

“ You going to be married!” cried Amy. 
How dare you? ” 

“ What women dare I dare,” she replied; “ I 
am my own mistress.” 

“ And therefore you are going to take a mas- 
ter. I could not have thought this of you.” 

Tears came into Amy’s eyes when she remem- 
bered how short Louisa’s time was, and that 
another hand than hers would smooth the rough 
path to the grave for her — or leave it rougher. 

“Well!” she sighed at last, “I suppose it 
must be borne. This flood-tide of marrying must 
at last subside. As I am already engaged for 
two weddings next month, perhaps you will fix 
a blank day for yours.” 

“ You may see another still before long,” said 
Louisa, laughing. 

“ What! are there any more fools left? ” 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


183 


“ Only Lettice and our Bayard.” 

Amy rose and went to the window, where 
she plucked a few geranium leaves and looked 
out. 

“ Lettice is so young,” she said. But she 
was thinking of her two grand friendships, both 
broken. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


*• To the lists his steed might bear him ; 

He might cry to the knights amain, 

‘ Let him for the fight prepare him 
Who charges my love with a stain ! * 

“ Oh ! then they would all be silent, 

But a cry from his soul would dart. 

Alas ! he must plunge his lance-point 
In his own accusing heart." 

Heine. 

It was mid-July, London was hot and dusty, 
trees in the parks were dusty and dark, the very 
sunshine seemed jaded. The prose of existence 
weighed upon the Immaculate. His life was like 
a London July; Lettice took no interest in any- 
thing that he cared for; he could not be inter- 
ested in anything that pleased her. Literature, 
art, public life, the relation of men to each other 
and to the Unseen — none of these things ever 
concerned Lettice. Save her beauty and grace, 
there was not a breath of poetry about her; all 
was flattest prose. Her lover longed amid the 
prosaic turmoil of town and toil for the green 
pastures and still waters of poetry, the poetry 
of life. 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


I8 5 


While he walked and mused, a face flashed 
out from the crowd of carriages, a face full of 
beauty and intellect, young, smiling, a poem in 
itself. It was Amy Langton’s; she, too, was 
tired and hot and thinking of green pastures. 
The air lost its heaviness, sunbeams their lurid 
tinge, the jaded crowd jostling on the hot pave- 
ment, wheels and hoofs clattering on the road, 
were purged of prose for the Immaculate. It 
was like the song of a wood-bird on the outskirts 
of a dreary town. 

Later in the day he was dropped from a han- 
som at the Marshall’s house at Notting Hill, 
where he found the drawing-room empty, though 
the dinner hour was striking. An envelope lay 
on the writing-table, folded in the newest style, 
and addressed in Lettice’s large, girlish writing 
to Mrs. Fitzwilliam; it had been placed there 
on purpose to attract his attention by the wilful 
beauty, who resented his earnest and repeated de- 
sire that she should give up the society of this 
fascinating but rowdy woman, of whom he had 
only that day heard contemptuous mention at a 
club. Some music stood on the open piano, a 
duet for baritone and soprano voices. It was 
marked C. Lovelace, and some mischievous hand 
had scribbled beneath “ and Letty ” in pencil. 
Yet Lettice did not care to sing duets with her 


1 86 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

betrothed. Among the few books in the room 
were some he had given her with an affectionate 
request to read them for his sake. The leaves 
were uncut, except where he had marked pas- 
sages for her attention. The fly-leaf of one bore 
a caricature of himself in wig and gown. Let- 
tice’s needlework lay just as she had thrown it 
aside. He liked her to work, it was a domestic, 
feminine occupation. How wonderful and grace- 
ful was the way in which the delicate fingers 
wielded the tiny tool! He took the work in 
his own hands and tried clumsily to hold the 
little shining needle in his fingers, which seemed 
so awkward and immense in contrast with hers. 

Then Lettice appeared in white muslin and 
fresh moss-roses, all smiles and graciousness. 
She had refrained from entering the drawing- 
room till the last moment for three reasons — 
firstly, because she wished to avoid a lecture, as 
she styled her lover’s innocent endeavours to im- 
prove her mind; secondly, because she wanted 
him to have full leisure to observe her note to 
Mrs. Fitzwilliam and the music that testified to 
a recent duet with Mr. Lovelace; and thirdly, 
because she believed waiting to be a wholesome 
discipline for lovers and good training for the 
severer restraints of married life. Her favourite 
theory that coolness on one side kindles love on 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


IS/ 


the other had proved its truth in an unexpected 
manner. Lester, outwardly as devoted as ever, 
had lost that enthusiasm which she confessed had 
bored her, with the result that he acquired a new 
worth in her eyes. 

To-night she was dressed to please his taste; 
she had even a rose-bud for him, which he ac- 
cepted with due gratitude, but no emotion. He 
looked reflectively upon the exquisite face so near 
the flower she was fastening in his coat and so 
like it, and received her bewitching upturned 
glance with no more emotion than if she had 
been a tailor measuring him for a coat. He was 
wondering how many such smiles and roses had 
been bestowed upon Mr. Lovelace. So grave 
and intent was the look in his dark eyes that 
poor little rose-leaf Letty was frightened. 
“ What is the matter? ” she asked. “ If you 
look so grave, I shall think you are cross because 
I kept you waiting.” 

“ Not cross, dearest,” he replied, taking the 
hand that was still busy with his coat. “ I was 
thinking ” 

But Letty’s father coming in just then, the 
Immaculate’s thoughts were untold. Major 
Marshall received him with cordiality, proud of 
the sight of his daughter’s frail and delicate beau- 
ty set off by the tall, knightly looking man with 


1 88 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


dark eyes and irreproachable bearing. That the 
major had been in the army and still retained his 
brevet rank was all that was known to the world 
of this gentleman, but everybody acknowledged 
that, whatever her faults, Mrs. Marshall was a 
long-suffering woman. The major now had busi- 
ness in the city, about which only one thing was 
known, namely, that its profits were not uncertain. 
The Marshall brothers were fast young men, one 
in the army, one an emigrant, the youngest in 
a Government office and living under the paternal 
roof. This young man followed his father, and 
was soon followed by his sister, Mrs. Cecil Lang- 
ton, who was on a long visit with her children. 

Soon after the uncomfortable dinner, “ ong 
fameal,” as Major Marshall said, Lester found 
Lettice upstairs in a low chair, reading in the 
fading light. When he appeared, the book van- 
ished among the folds of her dress. 

“ Spoiling your eyes, Lettice? ” he asked, 
drawing a chair to her side. “ A pity to spoil 
any thing so bright. You might find them use- 
ful some day.” 

“ They were only intended for ornament,” 
she replied, with the gay insolence that be- 
came her so well. “ I never mean them to be 
useful.” 

“ Not even for woolwork? And novels? ” 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. I 89 

“ Making out that I read nothing but 
novels! ” she pouted. 

“ Do you ever read anything more solid, 
dearest ?” 

“ Now you are going to lecture me in words 
a foot long. Do you take me for the House of 
Commons? ” 

“ You don’t look it,” he replied, with 
admiration; “more like an House of Uncom- 
mons.” 

“ I rather like you when you talk nonsense,” 
she returned, sweetly. 

“Thank you, dearest; I’ll never talk sense. 
But promise me that you will look into the books 
I sent you. You gave me an inch, so I take an 
ell.” 

“ I have read every word of them, you teasing 
man! But I am not going to stand an examina- 
tion upon them,” she pouted. 

“Oh!” he said. He looked grave and 
hurt. 

Then lights were brought in, and he had to 
leave his chair, which was in the way. It was 
some minutes before he resumed his seat and 
conversation. “ I found something about Bal- 
zac the other day and cut it out for you,” he 
began. “ It will explain why I wanted you not 
to read that novel. If you really wish to study 
13 


190 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

his works, you will find ‘ Eugenie Grandet ’ pleas- 
anter and more suitable.” 

“ Oh! I don’t want to read any more French; 
I am reading such a pretty thing of Loulou’s; the 
heroine is like a serpent.” 

“ Do you like Loulou’s works, Lettice? ” 

“ Better than French, Vif; you have fright- 
ened me away from French,” she replied, with a 
frank smile. 

How lovely she was in her soft, cloudy mus- 
lin, her pretty white hands clasped in her lap, 
her graceful head resting against the high-backed 
chair, and the lamplight falling on the golden 
hair and fresh rose-buds! But why should the 
Immaculate sigh and say to himself, “ Poor 
child!” 

Then Arthur Marshall lounged in, wrapped 
in a cloud of cigar smoke. “ Are you people 
going to sit looking at each other all the even- 
ing? ” he asked, subsiding in an easy-chair and 
yawning. His mother roused herself from a gen- 
tle doze and asked him if he would like a rubber 
with his father. 

“ The governor is in his den,” he replied. “ I 
say, Letty, you might amuse a fellow.” 

“ I am amusing a fellow, the proper fellow,” 
she replied. 

Then Lester, who had had enough of being 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. I9I 

amused, suggested music, and Lettice rose and 
went to the piano, her dress sweeping something 
from her chair to his feet, that he picked up and 
tossed savagely away. It was Balzac’s “ Scenes 
de la Vie Parisienne.” 

During the music the major came in; brandy 
in his eye, brandy in his talk, brandy in his gait. 
His wife looked keenly at him; at last Lester 
understood the family phrase, “ The governor is 
in his den.” He looked from the father to the 
fragile creature at the piano with an extreme 
pang of pity. 

While he was getting his hat and coat in the 
hall a white figure flashed down the stair and 
beckoned him into the dining-room. It was Let- 
tice, drooping, penitent, lovely. She looked 
down for a few moments and then faltered, “ I 
didn’t read much.” 

He did not reply; her humiliation pained 
him too much. 

“ You are angry,” she said, leaning her face 
against him to hide her tears. He put his arm 
round the pretty frail thing, but said nothing. 

“ You are so high-flown, Vif. Men never be- 
lieve women. Mamma always fibs to papa and 
Carrie to Cecil, and nobody minds. I wish you 
would not take things so seriously.” 

“ I can’t help it,” he gasped. “ Truth, for 


192 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


instance.” Then they stood in silence a moment, 
she with her flushed, wet face and tumbled golden 
hair pressed against him, he a little stiff, almost 
as if he shrank from her. At last she lifted her 
face with something of her old winning confi- 
dence. “You still love me?” she asked ten- 
derly. 

He wished her good night and went. Let- 
tice threw herself on a sofa and sobbed in her 
childish way. “ The angrier he is, the more I 
care for him,” she thought. 

“ And this,” he reflected as he drove away, 
“ is the creature I worshipped.” Passion rarely 
turns to indifference; the rebound is generally 
hate. Presently he dismissed his cab and strolled 
down to the embankment, whither he often re- 
paired, sometimes to study the wrecked human- 
ity there, sometimes to meditate. 

A flowing river impresses the imagination, 
disposing to the contemplation of the abstract; 
it makes the tangled web of individual joys and 
cares vanish, and that varied, many-hued tissue, 
the great vesture of human life, appear woven 
at the loom of time by fate, fortune, and natural 
law, guided by an unknown purpose to an un- 
known end. But the Thames! — the Thames 
which has seen the tragedy and comedy of so 
many centuries — so much human emotion has 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


193 


mingled with its waters all through the ages, the 
wonder is that it does not arise, itself a soul, and 
tell its secrets and mysteries. Glory of stars 
above, dark mystery of waters below, light airs 
in young trees, chimes floating from the clock- 
tower visible above the majestic pile along the 
water-side; all soothed, all tended to that intense 
species of reverie in which thought is too keen 
and rapid for words. 

Presently, while pacing beneath the trees 
after a cigar and much thought, Lester became 
interested in a man sitting on a bench in an atti- 
tude of extreme dejection, and sat by him, arous- 
ing no responsive interest. It was a sodden, 
nerveless, hopeless face that changed not at all 
when speaking in reply to the Immaculate’s civil 
remarks. No; he was not going home, he had 
no home, no friends, nothing. He was a French 
polisher once. 

“When did you eat last?” Lester asked, 
pained by the utter gloom of the dull voice and 
dull eyes. 

“ Don’t know. I know I was jolly drunk last 
night. No ’baccy, thankie. I haven’t so much 
as a pipe.” 

“ Here is one,” said the Immaculate, after a 
short and severe struggle with his feelings, be- 
cause it was a black and beautiful brier-wood 


194 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

pipe, the result of time and judicious smoking. 
“ Cheer up! Tell me what you are going to do! 
Here’s a light,” striking a match. 

The man lighted the pipe and smoked; his 
face changed. “ You ain’t a Holy Joe,” he said, 

turning to look at him. “ I’m d d if you’re 

not a bloomin’ young toff! ” 

“ A man, he replied, gently, “ like all men, 
knowing something of misery. Tell me all about 
yours.” 

“ I worked for a large firm, good wages, nice 
little ’ome — nice young wife — she died! One 
little gell left, three years old. Grew up, pretty 
and a style with her — I tell yeh, a style. She — 
she went — wrong.” 

“ Ah — ah — ah ! ” Lester’s hand went 

out with his heart and his voice, and gripped 
the workman’s firmly and warmly. “ You lost 
heart,” he said,“ cared for nothing, took to drink. 
No wonder! No wonder! I have a little girl, 
too; she is five.” 

“ You’ll come home with me and have sup- 
per,” he said later, after hearing a long, long 
story. “ Then you shall have a ticket for a lodg- 
ing. To-morrow we’ll see about work.” 

Of what passed between the sodden, starved 
tramp and the “ bloomin’ young toff ” there is no 
record. But it is known that months later a 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


195 


French polisher showed his mate a blackened 
brier-wood pipe he did not use. 

“ He’d a-polished it hisself,” he said, looking 
tenderly at it, “ but t’was the ’and-grip as fetched 


CHAPTER XV. 


“ How sweet are looks that ladies bend 
On whom their favours fall ! 

For them I battle to the end 
To save from shame and thrall.” 

Westminster is a place to think in, to dream 
in — if one happens not to know it too well. 
Thorney Isle, lonely and desolate, but visited at 
dead of night by .an apostle known only to the 
ferryman when the first Saxon church was hal- 
lowed twelve hundred years ago — Thorney Isle 
has seen the pageant of England’s growth during 
those long years; through it has throbbed, as 
through the main artery to a heart, through the 
Abbey, the Hall, St. Stephen’s, the strong, deep 
pulse of a great and growing nation’s life. 

For a young woman still capable of enthusi- 
asm, it was a great moment when she climbed 
for the first time the Ladies’ Gallery in the House 
of Commons and looked down upon the assem- 
bled legislators. What if the walls which rang 
with the eloquence of Pitt and Fox and witnessed 
the long strife of the Civil War were there no 

196 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


197 


more? Historic unity was unbroken. The 
mantle of old association had fallen upon the 
newer building. 

After all, is not the floor of the House like 
some gay listed ground of old? The members like 
mail-sheathed knights with silken scarves and 
drooping plumes, waiting with beating pulses and 
lance in rest the herald’s signal to charge? Does 
not the Speaker’s silence say, like the herald’s 
trumpet and voice, “ Brave knights, there is glory 
to win! Gallant knights, do your devoir! Strike 
for your ladies and do valiantly. Life is only 
once to lose, but glory never dies!” For gay 
balconies lined with ladies, there was the gallery 
cage; for the applause of multitudes, the press- 
men’s reports. But every knight might have his 
own lady in his heart. All save one, who 

“ Perforce must plunge his lance-point 
In his own accusing heart.” 

So greatly was she impressed by this that it 
was distressing to Miss Amy Langton to hear 
Mrs. St. Luke’s careless observations on the ex- 
pressive stammer of one honourable member, the 
part played by another’s eye-glass in the legisla- 
tion of his country, the strange adventures of 
another’s hat, the expression latent in yet 
another’s handkerchief. Strange and wonderful 
it was to reflect how great a part these harmless- 


I98 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

looking people in chimney-pot hats and ugly gar- 
ments were playing. 

“ Who is that dark young man on the Gov- 
ernment side? ” asked Mrs. St. Luke, the well- 
known first woman physician. 

“ That,” she replied with a flush of pride, 
“ is the man you were speaking of, the member 
for Dalesby.” 

“ To be sure, the writer of ‘ Some Cankers 
in Civilization.’ Engaged to Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s 
protegee, fast little Lettice Marshall. Poor man! 
We shall hear some exalted sentiments from that 
young gentleman, Amy, if he says anything. And 
when the Breach of Promise Act is before us, we 
shall hear, but not from him, all the old cheap 
pleasantries on our poor sex and all the old nam- 
by-pamby sentimentalities. And I prophesy that 
twenty years from this year of grace, 1879, the 
same stale jokes and the same cheap twaddle on 
the same subject — which the average male can 
not take seriously — will be uttered in this same 
place.* This Mr. Lester looks as if he had just 
stepped out of a mediaeval romance. Female 
suffrage would be to his advantage.” 

“ He is against the cause, and his political 
economy is unsound,” returned Amy with deep 
gravity. 


* Fulfilled Feburary, 1897. 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 1 99 

The business transacted below was not of ab- 
sorbing interest; something about herrings. An 
honourable member got on his legs to ask why 
a British general with his tiny force had been 
defeated in Africa? He heard that Government 
intended to know the reason why. Another 
asked if Government knew that a perverse subject 
had had the audacity to starve? Government 
promised to look into it. 

Honourable members put interminable ques- 
tions upon every conceivable subject; an excited 
Irishman got out of order; an honourable mem- 
ber appealed to the Speaker so informally that 
he was called to order. All in vain did the 
Speaker, contrary to his usual silence, maintain 
that the honourable member who had appealed 
to him was in order, and signify that he should 
continue his observations; cries of “ Order! ” in- 
terruptions from members calling him to order 
for every word, and each called to order by 
others, produced the effect of a general melee, 
amid which, ever and anon, rose the voice of 
the Speaker, like the herald’s trumpet, and cry- 
ing of the rules of the tourney. Some honoura- 
ble members coughed, some laughed, some 
talked. There were cheers, counter-cheers, iron- 
ical cheers. In ’79 the Closure had not been 
adopted. Mrs. St. Luke was delighted. “ We 


200 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


have come in for the rarest fun; an unusual 
scene,” she whispered. 

“ But what is it all about? Who is offend- 
ed? ” Amy asked. “ They seem bent on a row.” 

Gradually the storm subsided, the Speaker 
confirmed the remarks of an honourable mem- 
ber, to the effect that the excited Irishman had 
put himself out of order by addressing the leader 
of the House instead of the Chair; that by some 
fatality every member who attempted to call any 
other to order had himself fallen out of order; 
somebody apologized to somebody; everybody 
appeared satisfied, peace was just restored, when 
it occurred to a distinguished honourable mem- 
ber on the Opposition benches that the excited 
Irishman’s remarks had been received with de- 
rision, and that excited Irishmen’s remarks usu- 
ally were received with derision by the Govern- 
ment side. So there was a second row. 

“ The debate will be tame after this,” ladies 
whispered in their cage. 

At last the repeal of the Breach of Promise 
Act was moved. On one side, the undesirability 
of seeking balm for broken hearts in the shape of 
hard cash, on the other, the necessity of chas- 
tising heartless betrayers who amused themselves 
at the expense of women’s happiness, prospects, 
even reputation, was set forth. Then a plain, 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


201 


common-sense speaker described the act as “ a 
law to oblige a man who has made a mistake to 
render two lives miserable.” Many other sensi- 
ble and calm things this man said — that such 
actions were resorted to only by the mercenary 
and the unworthy; that those whose hearts were 
really hurt would not expose wounds to the pub- 
lic gaze; that no modest woman would let her 
name be dragged through courts of justice; that 
the law was a snare into which unsuspecting men 
were driven by wily schemers. 

It was said in return that the last was an 
abuse to which all things are liable; that the ac- 
tion was usually forced upon women by relatives; 
that the law did not seek to give balm for wound- 
ed affections, but compensation for ruined ca- 
reers; that a jilted woman rarely has a second 
chance of marriage, which, in many cases, means 
livelihood; and that working women throw up 
their employments on the prospect of marriage, 
and if not unable to resume them, at least lose 
time and credit. He also commented' on the in- 
constancy of his sex and the necessity of punish- 
ing triflers with female affections. Both gentle- 
men spoke without passion or levity, and in a tone 
of which even the Immaculate approved; so that 
the debate promised to be very dull. 

Then a melancholy person with a forlorn, 


202 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


bachelor air spoke of the perils of the unprotected 
male in a world consisting chiefly of powerful 
and scheming females, most of whom made it 
their business to marry; remarks which com- 
manded the sympathetic attention of the House. 
Justice, he said, was not to be obtained in a 
court consisting entirely of male creatures, when 
the complainant or the defendant was of the 
softer sex; the difficulty was increased tenfold 
when the female complainant or defendant was 
possessed of personal charms, “ and what wo- 
man,” he pathetically asked, “is not?” (Hear! 
hear! Cheers and laughter.) “ What chance of 
justice,” he demanded, “ would a man have 
against a not absolutely hideous person in petti- 
coats and tears? And,” he added with pathos 
“ they are so rarely hideous.” Therefore, he re- 
quired the abolition of the process on account of 
its injustice. 

This was promptly met by a spirited cham- 
pion armed with statistics of damages granted to 
men;; he made fun of the honourable member of 
forlorn, bachelor aspect, and said nothing in par- 
ticular in an amusing way. 

The next speaker said that public opinion 
kept gentlemen from breaking engagements, 
while the lower classes worked too hard to have 
fine feelings. He thought it an interference 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


203 


with the liberty of the subject to investigate 
these matters. He spoke of the cruelty of read- 
ing love-letters in court. “ What honourable 
member,” he asked with emotion, “ would care 
to have his own effusions confided to the public 
ear? ” (Hear! hear!) Some one replied that it 
might improve their style. (No! no! Hear! 
hear! Laughter.) 

Then rose a shrewd and worldly honourable 
member, who had never been in earnest about 
anything, even dinners or bets, and who had a 
command of measured speech and a fund of hu- 
mour. Honourable members chuckled or 
laughed outright while he darted shafts of bright- 
pointed sarcasm at every weakness of the frailer 
sex, for whom he appeared to have an amused, 
half-tolerant contempt. There was not a smile 
in the Ladies’ Gallery. The honourable member 
for Dalesby scowled savagely at him. He pic- 
tured man a great-hearted, generous Samson, 
perpetually victimized by the wiles of astute and 
scheming Delilahs. He maintained that the 
process for breach of promise gave more power 
to the already too-powerful woman. He quoted 
Samson Agonistes with humorous application. 
He called upon the laws of his country to defend 
helpless man against strong woman; then he 
descanted on the love of change natural to man, 


204 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


which led him to make many essays in courtship 
before finally deciding on a wife. He appealed 
to honourable members to consider the ease with 
which man was ensnared by bright eyes and pink 
and white faces. “ Shall a man,” he asked, “ pay 
so great a penalty for the folly of a moment? ” 
“Yes,” replied the member for Dalesby, 
catching the Speaker’s eye. “ He shall suffer for 
the term of his life.” For men were fickle, he 
maintained; they were heartless and selfish in 
their dealings with women. He said hard things 
of Milton, maintained that his poetry, happiness, 
and moral dignity were marred by his want of 
chivalry. He censured the cowardice of men 
who trifle with the affections of beings more emo- 
tional, more dependent upon affection for happi- 
ness than themselves; beings condemned by na- 
ture to weakness and suffering, and less able to 
resist the pain of betrayal; beings whose reputa- 
tion was so susceptible of stain, and often tar- 
nished even by a broken contract; beings whose 
affections were purer, more constant, and unself- 
ish than those of men. Men made such prom- 
ises too lightly. In the higher classes he thought 
honour and deference to public opinion were a 
check; in the lowest he would recommend kick- 
ing; but in the lower middle classes the action for 
breach of promise was the best check. He 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


205 


warmed to his work, words came readily, and 
previous speakers, especially the last flippant 
man, were severely handled. Presently the word 
honour set him on fire; he quoted Burke’s lament 
over the ashes of dying chivalry, the “ chastity 
of honour that felt a stain like a wound,” finish- 
ing with a glowing peroration on that burning, 
beautiful theme. 

It was spirited; it was a surprise and a suc- 
cess; it carried hearers with it, proving that he 
could be savagely sarcastic, that he could interest 
people and make them listen. The velvety voice 
could ring, it could rise and fall, penetrate and 
persuade. 

To a young woman in the gallery it proved 
that there was only one man in the whole world, 
and that she loved him with all her heart. “ For 
he is worth it,” she thought, gladly and proudly. 


14 


CHAPTER XVI. 


But for loving, why, you would not, sweet, 

Though we prayed you, 

Paid you, brayed you 
In a mortar — for you could not, sweet.” 

“ Now, Vif, let us talk it over. You may 
smoke — do what you like, only do not, my dear, 
dear boy, do not throw your life away on — a mad 
punctilio! ” 

“ Dear Aunt Evelyn, you are most kind. But 
I’m old enough and bold enough to take care of 
myself.” 

Lady Evelyn Lester had been a beauty, much 
like the Immaculate, her godson; she was still 
handsome. 

“ If is useless to tell you,” she continued, 
“ that a career is before you; that Loughborough 
will one day be in office; that not only he, but all 
of them, have their eyes upon you. But I will 
say this — would any girl with a grain of self-re- 
spect like to know that she was married, not for 
love but loyalty? ” 

“ No lady that I am acquainted with will ever 
know any such thing.” 


206 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


207 


“ Vivian, this marriage will be wretched, she 
will be wretched — your ways will be misery to 
her. If she cared for you it would be different. 
But she does not. Would she have refused to go 
with you and our party the other night on the 
plea of a headache, and then have appeared with 
the Fitzwilliam clan, flirting with that wretched 
young Lovelace? Of breeding, I will say noth- 
ing; but does that argue love? In public; be- 
fore your eyes! Such a marked insult! ” 

“ This is painful/’ he replied. “ No more, 
pray.” 

“ You poor, dear boy. How I should like to 
ship you somewhere across the world and keep 
you there till she had run away with somebody 
else!” 

Hapless Immaculate! Having lunched with 
his relatives, he dined at Notting Hill, bearing 
a bouquet of white moss-roses for Lettice, some 
of which he was allowed to place in her hair, 
thinking how well her girlish grace and pure col- 
ouring, in her simple white dress, harmonized 
with the pure white roses in thir cool sheath of 
green. 

On turning from this delightful task Lester 
bent over a vase of crimson and gold roses, in- 
haling their scent. “ It is coals to Newcastle to 
give you flowers, Lettice,” he said. “ You 


208 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


breathe flowers. Perhaps a secret sympathy at- 
tracts like to like.” 

She smiled with conscious power and secret 
amusement. Lovelace had given her the red 
roses. 

Then they dined with the usual discomfort pe- 
culiar to that house, and Lettice resigned her- 
self to a dull evening at home with her future 
husband. 

“ You were very good about the other 
night,” she said, when they were sitting apart 
together in the last sunbeams, while Mrs. Mar- 
shall discreetly dozed on the sofa; Major 
Marshall was in his studly, and Arthur dining 
out. She spoke almost tenderly; Lester was 
touched. 

“ I felt so sure that you had good cause for 
changing your mind,” he replied, intending no 
sarcasm. 

“ Poor Chari — Mr. Lovelace, how all this 
jealousy would amuse and flatter him!” Lettice 
said. 

“ He shall enjoy the flattery no longer,” he 
exclaimed, with a subdued fierceness that fright- 
ened her. “ Do you know, Lettice, gossip links 
his name with yours? ” 

“ You make so much of things. And you are 
so cross and unkind to-night,” she pouted. “ And 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


209 


after I have been nice to you, and said I was 
sorry! ” 

The Immaculate had turned away; he was 
looking thoughtfully out of the window. 
“ Thanks, dearest. So that is at an end. Now 
I am going to speak to you very seriously,” he 
said later, after a very solemn pause of apparent 
reflection. 

“ I knew you were going to worry me to- 
night the moment I saw your grave face. You 
are getting tired of me, Vivian, and you want to 
quarrel and part us — just like a man! — so self- 
ish!” Tears rose and streamed over her face 
most becomingly. 

“ This is unjust,” he said, with affected indif- 
ference. “ Dearest, I seek no quarrel. I always 
was and always will be true to you.” 

“ Then why are you so cross and hard? ” she 
sobbed. “ But I know somebody who loves me.” 

“ Let us have done with misunderstandings 
and be at peace, Letty dear. As your future hus- 
band I have rights, and those rights I insist 
upon.” 

“ Oh! ” returned poor little Lettice, awed by 
his cool manner and devoured by vague terror. 
“ You frighten me. You are so much cleverer, 
stronger, and older ” 

“ Dearest, I only wish to protect and cherish 


210 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


you,” he interposed gently. “ Those are the 
rights I insist upon; sacred, precious rights, Let- 
tice, believe me.” 

His words were not without effect; she was 
both abashed and comforted by them; she looked 
up at him with a smile of confidence and real af- 
fection shining through her tears, which, of 
course, had to be kissed away. 

“ I don’t know how you ever came to choose 
me, Vivian,” she said humbly after this interest- 
ing rite. 

“ But I have chosen you, and you have ac- 
cepted me; all we have to do now is to consider 
our duty to each other.” 

“Duty! O Vif! You speak so like a ser- 
mon,” she said, looking so charming and so piti- 
ful that he could not help kissing the fragile hand 
he held in his. 

“ Supposing you were my wife now, don’t you 
think we should get on better? ” he asked. 

“ No. I don’t want to be married yet.” 

“ Let us try the experiment of marrying, at 
all events. Say this day month, Lettice.” 

“ Oh! I can say nothing; mamma must man- 
age that,” she replied, appearing to yield in a 
cloud of blushes, but secretly convinced that 
mamma would soon put a stop to such nonsense 
as that. 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


21 1 


“ You shall never regret it, Letty dear,” he 
said, with earnest tenderness, after another 
caress. 

“ To think that I should go so near to loving 
a man! ” Lettice was musing, as they sat hand in 
hand, in the silence that followed. 

At this interesting moment the door opened, 
and Mrs. Cecil Langton came in. Mrs. Marshall 
awoke and exclaimed at the darkness; the lovers 
moved apart; Vivian obeyed an injunction to 
ring the bell. Letty went to the piano and be- 
gan strumming, regretting her too great lenity 
towards her lover. “ It will never do to be in 
love with one’s husband,” she mused. 

Then Lester drew a chair to Mrs. Marshall’s 
side and told her of Lettice’s consent. Mrs. 
Marshall objected and talked of trousseaux , 
breakfasts, and guests, but Lester pleaded so 
earnestly that she might be married anyhow, even 
in sackcloth, so long as she was married quickly, 
that Mrs. Marshall gave in, a happy inspiration 
showing this to be a brave way out of trous- 
seau difficulties. Tea and lights followed; Mrs. 
Cecil Langton poured grievances into her 
mother’s ear; Lettice poured out tea, when a 
man entered, unannounced. It was Mr. Love- 
lace. Mrs. Marshall shivered; Lettice was de- 
lighted; to see these two men before her, and 


212 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


play them off one against the other, was just what 
she had been longing for. “ Now there will be 
some fun/’ she thought. 

Lovelace took a seat by the tea-maker with 
an air that made the Immaculate’s blood boil. 
The newcomer lounged at his ease in a deep chair, 
yawned, and addressed his remarks wholly to 
Lettice, who had plenty of smiles for him and 
thought it a good opportunity to put Lester on 
the rack. 

The latter glared savagely at his rival, and, 
turning his back on him, addressed his conversa- 
tion to his hostess, who was too frightened to 
listen, while the Immaculate was preoccupied in 
remembering that he had not insisted upon those 
preconjugal rights of which he had spoken, Let- 
tice’s unwonted sweetness having beguiled him 
from the subject. He felt all the time through 
the back of his head the glances and mutual 
smiles passing between Lettice and Lovelace. 
“What jolly tea you make!” was one of this 
amiable gentleman’s harmless remarks, to which 
the tone and the look gave weight. 

Mr. Charles Lovelace confined his admiration 
to the objects of other people’s; the fact of a 
woman’s being admired by another man, were 
she dull as a wet day and ugly as a railway sta- 
tion, was enough to make him desire her affec- 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


213 


tions. This was the secret of his five years' 
philandering with Georgie Langton. Georgie 
attracted a continual stream of worshippers; no 
sooner did one try to bring things to a climax 
than Mr. Lovelace appeared with an intimation 
that the property was booked. The adorer 
driven away, Mr. Lovelace’s affection cooled till 
a new one appeared, when the old game was 
played again. Lettice shared this charming 
weakness. Having heard of Lovelace as the law- 
ful spoil of Georgie, she at once felt the necessity 
of winning him. So this pretty pair were pitted 
against each other in a sort of duel, each bent 
on capturing the heart of the other for the re- 
fined amusement of throwing it away. The pres- 
ence of Lester stimulated the good Lovelace to 
renewed ardour, while a rumour that Lovelace 
was now formally engaged to Georgie had the 
same effect on Lettice. 

The Immaculate affected not to observe 
Lovelace when he was warbling duets with Let- 
tice and bending, being short-sighted, over the 
golden head in which Lester had just placed the 
moss-fose, in a way that made the latter green 
with indignation. But in truth he could see and 
feel nothing but those warblers; and the sight of 
Lettice’s sweet face raised to the ardent glances 
of Lovelace at last became so intolerable that 


214 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


he left the room and went out into the smoky- 
strip of back garden, where a feline concert was 
going on, to calm his emotions and bring him- 
self to think gently of Lettice. How sweet she 
had been in those few twilight moments! Was 
that, too, only a piece. of coquetry? 

When he returned, Lovelace had taken his 
leave, highly gratified with his evening’s amuse- 
ment. Mrs. Marshall was gone to bed with some 
slight ailment, Mrs. Cecil Langton again in the 
nursery; Lettice was alone, half triumphant, half 
frightened, and ostensibly engrossed in needle- 
work. 

“Well, Vif! ” she said airily. “You soon 
get tired of my society.” 

He looked sternly upon her half-saucy, half- 
shrinking, and wholly charming face as he re- 
plied, “ On the contrary, I had too little of it to 
be tired.” 

“ You were horribly rude to poor Mr. Love- 
lace,” she pouted. 

“ I felt rude. Had I remained in sight of that 
conceited and insufferable ass, I should have had 
to smash him to atoms.” 

She laughed a delicious laugh of amused tri- 
umph. 

“ When you promised to be my wife just 
now,” continued Lester, with an intent gaze that 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


215 


she attributed to admiration, “ I almost thought 
you loved me.” 

“Really!” responded Lettice, with a pretty 
curl of her lip. 

“ But when I saw you with that — that — un- 
speakable ass,” he went on, with gathering indig- 
nation, “ nothing could keep me from thinking 
that your feeling for him at least appeared sim- 
ilar to your feeling for me.” 

“ You accuse me of caring for him! ” returned 
Lettice, with sudden anger. “Ah! perhaps you 
feel that he is more fitted to win hearts than some 
people.” 

“ If I, who have every reason to believe the 
contrary,” here his gaze became so intense that 
Lettice shrank under it, “ can not refrain from 
unjust suspicions — what wonder that people 
couple your names? ” 

“ Who cares if they do? ” she retorted, watch- 
ing her victim’s writhings with complacency. 

“ I care. Therefore I insist upon your giving 
up his acquaintance.” 

“ Do you insist upon anything else? ” she 
asked, with a teasing smile and a delightful con- 
sciousness of power. 

“ I insist upon your dropping Mrs. Fitz- 
william.” 

“ And you think I am so simple as to give in 


21 6 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


to your insistings? Up in the clouds as usual, 
Vif. What do you know of women? ” 

All that I know of women depends on you,” 
he replied, turning pale. “ Women have great 
moral power over men, Lettice; a man’s estimate 
of the sex depends on his wife; his own moral 
status on that.” 

“ What dry stuff you talk to-night! ” she re- 
turned, suppressing a yawn. 

“ Will you do this for me or will you not? ” 
he asked. 

“ I will not.” 

“ If you refuse me this one favour now, how 
will you learn to obey me as a wife? ” 

“ Just as if I had the smallest intention of 
* obeying you as a wife! ’ ” 

“ Yet you have promised me to become my 

wife this day month ” 

“ Indeed! I promised nothing of the kind. 
Silence doesn’t always give consent.” 

“ Will you promise now? ” 

“ Not I.” 

“ My dear child, will you speak seriously? ” 
“ I don’t know that I will,” she replied airily, 
holding her work to one side to study its effect, 
and thinking how desperately in earnest her vic- 
tim was. “ If you don’t like me, Vif, you can 
leave me.” 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


2i; 


“ Do you mean that? ” he asked, in a stifled 
voice. “ Are we really to part? ” 

“ Just as you like. What do I care? ” 

“ I can not think that you love me, Letty,” 
he replied, his large, dark eyes luminous with 
emotion, his features full of pathos. 

She longed to throw her arms round his neck 
and protest that she loved him with all her heart; 
but vanity and the coquette’s wayward desire to 
play her fish as long as possible restrained her. 

“ Everything I do offends you and sets you 
preaching; you expect me to be as dull and 
dreary as yourself. What a pity you didn’t fall 
in love with a prim girl like your paragon, Amy 
Langton. / like fun and pleasure and a little 
quiet flirtation.” 

His cheek flushed. “ We have made a mis- 
take,” he replied. “ I see that it is not in my 
power to make you happy. But I will not make 
you miserable; you shall have your freedom, Let- 
tice, if you wish it.” 

“ Thanks. I always meant to take it,” re- 
turned Lettice drily. 

“Must we part then?” he asked in a tremu- 
lous voice. 

“ If you like.” 

“ Will you not — change a little — for my 
sake? ” 


218 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ No, I won’t. And I won’t be teased any 
longer. If you don’t like me you can leave me,” 
she replied, with sudden temper. 

He was standing very stiffly before her, not 
far from the door; had he been farther from it 
their fates might have been different. He bowed, 
turned, and went, with a brief farewell that com- 
pletely took her by surprise. 

But when the door had closed upon him and 
she found herself alone in the dimly lighted room, 
the meaning of the scene flashed through her. 
“He is gone! O Vif!” she cried, springing 
to her feet. It was real love now, or at least as 
much of it as her weak and wayward heart was 
capable of. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


“ The fraud of men was ever so 
Since summer first was leavy.” 

It was long before the earliest time at which 
Lettice was likely to rise, this variable hour de- 
pending more on the prospect of occupation 
agreeable enough to woo her from her pillow 
than on the dial. Unable to rest, she dressed 
with unusual care, in the secret hope that Les- 
ter, after passing a night of misery and despair, 
would rush distracted to the house and implore 
forgiveness. So she made herself as beautiful as 
a young angel, and looked as fresh as a rose, say- 
ing to herself, “ He will come back; he will come 
back.” 

She waited at home all day, making four or 
five different and enchanting toilets and chang- 
ing her mood from anger to tenderness, from ten- 
derness to hope, and thence to anger again. 
Presently, as the afternoon wore on, she took a 
sheet of paper and scribbled hastily, 

“ Dearest Vif — 

“ Come back to 

“ Your broken-hearted 

“ Letty.” 

219 


220 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“Well! that ought to fetch him/’ said her 
sister, coolly looking over her shoulder; Letty’s 
pride and shame were blazoned in her face as she 
tore the note to atoms. 

At last a letter came by special messenger. 
“I knew he would write or come!” she cried, 
with a flush of triumph. “ I knew it.” She be- 
gan to consider how soon it would be prudent 
to forgive him. It was a thick packet, but the 
thickness was made up of her photograph, a tress 
of her hair, and some half dozen faded flowers, 
bearing a date and some such inscription as, 
“ From her hair ” — “ She gave me this in the gar- 
den ” — “ Under the orange-tree, moonlight.” 
The sight of these petrified her, and she read with 
amazement: 

“ Dear Miss Marshall — 

“ That you should have told me to leave you 
is most painful to me, but, as you justly said, I 
could never, with my tastes and views, which I 
am now too old to change, make your life happy, 
or even endurable. I have the consolation of 
knowing that my disappointment will be the 
greatest relief to you and the only foundation 
for your happiness, which I sincerely hope will 
be very great. I trust that you will continue 
to regard me as a friend, and will give me the 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


221 


privilege of rendering you any service in my 
power. Shall I return the letters you did me the 
honour to write, or shall I destroy them? 

“ With every good wish for your happiness, 

“ I remain, dear Miss Marshall, 

Yours very truly, 

Vivian Lester.” 

m 

Mortal chill fell upon Lettice as she read; 
all was over, she felt; never, never would she 
care for anything again. Poor, crushed rose- 
leaf! 

The next day, when Lettice and her sister 
were walking in Kensington Gardens, who should 
approach them but Mr. Lovelace. It was a 
purely accidental and therefore doubly charming 
meeting, at which Letty flushed deliciously, while 
he looked as only Lovelaces can. Soon after he 
joined them, Mrs. Langton and her child became 
conveniently invisible. 

Poor Mr. Lovelace ever had a pious horror 
of domestic bliss. But he could not bear the 
thought of losing Georgie, though the horrors 
of a purely domestic life were now pressing close 
upon him, the iron of prospective matrimony en- 
tering his soul, and Georgie represented duty in- 
stead of delight. In this mood he met Lettice, 
who had never looked more lovely, he thought. 
15 


222 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


The slight pallor caused by her trouble height- 
ened the delicacy of her beauty; she was tremu- 
lous, wistful, yearning for sympathy; she did not 
attempt to conceal the pleasure she found in his 
society; her heart was sore, her wounded vanity 
needed balm. She had not yet told her parents 
of the breach with Vivian; Carrie had laughed 
at her fears, not having seen Lester’s final letter. 
Lettice felt that she must be pitied or die. Love- 
lace saw that something was wrong; he heard 
vague hints of tyranny; he was ready to protect 
her against the whole world. Letty was misun- 
derstood and unhappy. She was told that some- 
body understood her; she burst into tears. His 
vanity and pity were both touched. 

“ Letty,” he murmured, “ I have always 
adored you.” Now Letty’s vanity was touched; 
her self-pity overflowed in fresh tears. “ Don’t 
tempt me,” she whispered. 

He looked volumes, but said nothing for a 
few moments, while he wondered what were her 
expectations, and mused upon Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s 
hints of a rich and doting godmother. “ Marry 
me, Letty,” he said softly, when they paused be- 
neath an elm. 

She bent her eyes to the ground. What ven- 
geance on that hard-hearted Vivian! Her breath 
came quickly; the hand Lovelace had taken flut- 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


223 


tered like a small bird in his. “ Hush, I am en- 
gaged,” she faltered. 

“ Engaged! ” echoed Lovelace, with energy 
engendered by opposition. “ And to whom? To 
a tyrannical prig who undervalues and misunder- 
stands you.” 

“ But you — you, too, are engaged.” 

“ Dearest Letty, I was” he repeated ten- 
derly. 

On the Tuesday before Georgie Langton’s 
wedding day a small party, consisting of Louisa 
Stanley, the Immaculate, who was an old friend 
of the bridegroom, the bridegroom, Edward 
Graham himself, who may be remembered as the 
distant and silent adorer, and Amy Langton, 
drove to a secluded London church in the fore- 
noon. Here Louisa and Mr. Graham were mar- 
ried very dismally. The Immaculate was always 
turning up as an old friend of somebody; on this 
occasion, Louisa’s brother being on foreign 
service, he came in handy both as groomsman 
and to give the bride away; the grace and pro- 
priety with which he performed these functions 
may be imagined. 

When they were signing the registry in the 
vestry, Amy gave a faint shriek and dropped 
her pen. 

“ Come, Amy,” remonstrated the bride- 


224 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


groom, “ you’ve no right to these weaknesses; 
it’s not your show this time.” 

The Immaculate made no observation what- 
ever; he stood with absolutely unmoved counte- 
nance and faultless demeanour, awaiting his turn 
to sign. Louisa peeped over Amy’s shoulder 
and exclaimed in turn when she saw what she 
had been too agitated to perceive when signing 
herself, namely, the signatures of the last couple 
married — Charles Lovelace, 30, and Lettice 
Marshall, 21, parentage and circumstances cor- 
rectly given. Crimson and tremulous, Amy 
signed, and the Immaculate, advancing with his 
accustomed grace and a smile like the Heathen 
Chinee’s, took the pen with the observation, 
“ Their carriage drove off as we arrived,” and 
wrote his name in his usual neat and legible 
hand. 

“ Friends of yours? ” the clergyman asked. 
“ Married by special license. The bride scarcely 
looked twenty-one, I thought.” 

“ I must go home and break it to Geor- 
gie,” Amy said in the church porch later to 
Louisa, 

“ Poor Georgie! ” said Louisa, who was pet- 
rified. 

“ In all seriousness, I am grieved for the in- 
sult to your sister.” 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. # 225 

“ Georgie will never hold up her head again! ” 
Amy said. 

The bride and bridegroom drove away; 
Amy’s heart sank; she was near tears. 

“Courage!” said the Immaculate, drawing 
her hand within his arm. “ Graham is a good 
fellow, and Algerian winters will prolong her 
life.” 

“ I know,” she replied, “ I know. But what 
shall I do without her? Selfish! Then — poor 
Georgie! ” 

“ I congratulate your sister on her escape,” 
he said. “ As for me, I was recommended to 
resign, or rather told to send in my papers, a 
week ago. I thought Lovelace was probably on 
promotion.” 

When Amy reached Angel Road she found 
the whole family at home in the highest spirits. 
Georgie and Lucy came into the hall and asked 
her a thousand questions — “ How did it go 
off? ” — “ Was Louisa very nervous? ” — “ You 
look as if you had been to a funeral, Amy.” 
— “ Only think! It makes her miserable even 
to look at weddings,” laughed Georgie. “ She 
is as white as a sheet; one would think 
she had been married herself. Why, Amy, 
you are not going to faint! Fetch some water, 
Lucy.” 


226 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“No, I am not going to faint — but — lock the 
door, Georgie." 

“ Then you are going to be married your- 
self! ” cried Georgie, triumphantly. “ But hear 
my news first! Here is a telegram from Algy. 
He will be here in time for the wedding. Isn't 
it delicious! Think of old Algy! Do you sup' 
pose that he will have a great bushy beard, wear 
no waistcoats, and eat with a clasp-knife, and 
walk about in big boots and a flannel shirt, Amy? 
How will Charlie like him? Why, Amy, you 
don't seem glad!'' 

“ Dear Georgie," she replied gently, “ I have 
heard bad news. No; it does not concern 

Algy.” 

“ Then it concerns me ! " cried Georgie, the 
brightness fading from her face. “ It is 
Charlie! " 

“ Dear, he would never have made you 
happy." 

“ Amy! What do you mean? " Georgie cried 
in a discordant voice. 

“ Try to forget him, dear Georgie." 

“ Tell me at once," she said coldly but 
trembling much, “ and have done." 

“ He married — Lettice — this morning." 

“Oh!" Georgie shrank as if she had been 
struck and turned pale as death. “ Mamma had 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


227 


set her heart upon it,” she said, after a pause. 
“ Thank you. Tell the others.” 

“ Dear Georgie! ” Amy said, caressing her. 

“ Look here, Amy,” said Georgie, taking the 
water Lucy had brought, and drinking it with a 
smile. “ I drink to the health of Mr. and Mrs. 
Lovelace. Who gave the bride away? I would 
have done it with pleasure, and the bridegroom, 
too, or any other rubbish I was tired of.” Then, 
in a shaky, hesitating voice, “ Did they look very 
happy, Amy? ” 

“ I didn’t see them. Mr. Lester did. He 
congratulated you on your escape.” 

“ Much obliged to the Immaculate. Mr. and 
Mrs. Lovelace! the blushing bride! Will they 
send us cards and cake? Ought I to write and 
congratulate them? You see they are both such 
old friends. O Amy! ” Georgie turned away 
quickly and ran upstairs. A few minutes after 
Mrs. Langton came in with a cheerful, “ Well, 
Amy, how did it go off? Where is Georgie 
again? Does she think all those dresses will be 
ready by Thursday at this rate? ” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


“ I could not love thee, dear, so much, 

Loved I not Honour more.” 

The bright sweetness of September lay on 
the country; slopes dipping down to the river 
Dale showed a pale gleam of harvested fields; 
here and there a spot of vivid orange or gold 
glowed like a flame in dark, thick foliage. Far 
away to the east the strip of sea visible from 
Baron’s Cleeve looked like a still cloud of azurd 
air; the pale sky, stainless overhead, darkened 
into purply mist on the horizon. An exquisite 
hush had fallen on weary Nature; it was a time 
for quiet musings and peaceful dreams, a pensive 
time, grave, not sad. The garden terraces at 
Baron’s Cleeve glowed brighter than ever at this 
season, as if with a last supreme effort; myrtles 
were still in bloom, fruit hung rich in orchards 
and on walls, late roses exhaled the last sweet- 
ness of summer, a Virginia creeper twined among 
the ivy on the gray stone house had changed to 
fiery red in the last few days. 

Here Amy Langton was snatching a brief 
228 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


229 


holiday before the winter work. She was very 
tired; the romance of daring an unusual life in 
the teeth of opposition had evaporated with the 
novelty of it, leaving a barren stretch of gray, 
uninviting duty behind. Life seemed nothing 
but perpetual labour, all illusions and loveliness 
crushed beneath the grim monotony of work. 
Everybody experiences such moods at times. 
The announcement that Lettice and Mr. Love- 
lace had made a stolen match two days be- 
fore Georgie’s wedding-day in the middle of 
August was a humiliation that Georgie bore 
with more spirit than could have been expected, 
going her with her mother and sister on a 
continental tour that she heartily enjoyed, she 
said. 

Amy had now no family life; she never could 
have one; there were other more congenial 
daughters in the home in which she had felt her- 
self so superfluous. Sitting on the terrace that 
afternoon she thought and thought of these 
things, while she wrote to Louisa, who was on 
her wedding tour, one of those long letters that 
often astonish the male mind. She wrote on, till 
shadows lengthened, sunlight softened, and swal- 
lows twittered in airy squadrons over the water 
in the valley below. Then she heard the sound 
of wheels on the gravel, Steven’s whistle through 


230 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


the house, her brother’s deep voice and his wife’s 
clear laugh in the hall. 

A moment after there was a quick, light step 
on the terrace, at which her eyes turned to fire, 
her face to momentary crimson; the whole world 
changed from grayness to glory. The Immac- 
ulate would have been more or less than human 
had he not known that his unexpected appear- 
ance had produced all that radiance and agita- 
tion in the face before him. But he only said, 
as he warmly clasped the hand offered him, “ I 
drove over with your brother to dine. They 
said I should find you here.” And she only re- 
plied that she was glad and that the afternoon 
was pleasant. Then he took a seat near her, 
bent towards her, his hands clasped lightly in 
front of him, and watched her with kindling 
eyes, while she folded her closely-written foreign 
sheets, put them in an envelope, and addressed 
them. 

“ I need not ask to whom? ” he said, when 
the superscription was begun. 

“ Indeed, I hope you would not be so rude,” 
she replied; “ we should never again call you the 
Immaculate.” 

“ Do I deserve it? Am I indeed such a 
prig? ” 

“I decline to gratify a morbid vanity by a 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


231 


denial, Mr. Lester. You need not look so pa- 
thetic about it.” 

“ Can I help it when you are so severe,” he 
returned. “ Dr. Amy,” he added, after some 
happy, silent minutes, “ do you remember our 
last holiday at Baron’s Cleeve? ” 

“ Quite well. Have you a foreign stamp? ” 

“ Only two pennies and a halfpenny, if they 
will serve? ” 

“ Thank you. Plenty of room.” 

“ You would have nothing to say to me 
then.” 

“ On the contrary, I said a great deal, if 
I remember rightly,” she replied, with 
an unsteady laugh, whereupon the Immacu- 
late returned reproachfully, “ But you did 
not say the right things. I always was at- 
tracted to you; your friendship has been and 
is the most precious thing in my life, Amy; 
but ” 

“ I am glad, so glad, and proud, too. I al- 
ways liked you, even when you scolded me most. 
Your errors are so respectable, even venerable — - 
they are precious heirlooms from forefathers, dear 
Mr. Lester.” 

“ Come! come! come! ‘venerable errors’! 
Ah! you are too severe, dear prophetess.” 

“ Hit back, then. Have your revenge.” She 


232 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


laughed and looked up with gay defiance; he 
looked grave, wistful, a little bewildered. 

They were on the same terrace on which they 
had so often met on sunny afternoons long ago, 
on which she had thrown roses at him, on which 
he once appealed to her to give up her medical 
career. They remembered it all. She was sit- 
ting in the shadows of the fig-trellis; some late 
rose-petals had fallen on the turf, a sunbeam 
gleamed through the trellis upon her hair. 

“ Dearest prophetess,” the Immaculate said, 
with a tremble in his beautiful velvet voice, and 
a still flame in his beautiful pansy eyes, “ this 
friendship, this beautiful, precious friendship — is 
— on my part something more. It is love.” 

She covered her face with her hand. He 
thought — or was it the effect of a quivering sun- 
beam through the fig-trellis? — -still he thought 
there was something like a sob in the quick 
breath and heaving breast. 

“ No,” she said faintly at last. “ Not love, 
dear Vivian; never that, between us.” 

“ Yes, Amy, that, always that, dearest, noth- 
ing less. Take it, darling, take it and keep it 
forever and ever.” As he spoke he slid softly — 
and of course with perfect grace — to one knee 
on the turf at her feet. Their faces were quite 
close, the beating of their hearts was audible 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


233 


to each. The Immaculate was really too beauti- 
ful for words. Surely none but a fiend could resist 
him. Was Dr. Langton a tigress? Was her 
heart made of cast iron or of Portland stone? 
One is enraged with this demon of a girl. At 
this enchanting moment these verses floated 
through her mind: 

“ All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 

Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 

Are all but ministers of love, 

And feed his sacred flame.” 

They carried her spirit to a sunny morning 
in the Riviera; she heard the hum of bees in 
thyme and the soft wash of blue waves on the 
hidden shore. She choked down a rising sob, 
gently repulsed an arm that was stealing round 
her, and said: “It is September. Last January 
you met and adored Lettice Marshall. In Au- 
gust, only a month ago, she was your promised 
wife.” 

“ Nay, dearest. That was — illusion — not 
love.” 

“ This, too, is illusion,” said this fiendish 
young female austerely. “ Don’t spoil our beau- 
tiful friendship, Vivian. What a tale I heard 
under the olives that evening, and what an awful 
cold I had the next day! ‘ Not only the most 
beautiful, but the best of her sex.’ I couldn’t rise 


2 34 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 

anywhere near to the level; couldn’t enter into 
the raptures in the least. I was held a publican 
and sinner.” 

“What a — what a — fool I was!” muttered 
the Immaculate, using a quite unpresentable 
word. “ Darling, listen ” 

“ I am listening. I listened then. I listened 
in the cage in the House of Commons, and I 
heard all the fine things you said about men’s 
levity and their light way of promising mar- 
riage.” 

“ True. But I’ve eaten a peck of salt with 
you, dearest. I’ve studied your character thor- 
oughly. Haven’t you refused me already, years 
ago, on this very spot? But I must confess this. 
That old illusion didn’t last. That box on the 
ear — and the dog’s bite — you remember, poor 
little Angela? — killed it. It was all struggle and 
duty after that.” 

“ Oh! oh! Our perfect knight, our Immac- 
ulate, telling such — such awful — lies! ” 

“ Oh! not lies. The illusion returned and re- 
turned, the charm of beauty and grace and sup- 
posed love; but it always had to be wooed back 
in the name of duty. Forget it, dear. Try to 
love me a little; be my wife, be Angela’s 
mother.” 

“It will not do, Vivian; we should not even 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 235 

agree in educating Angela. Dear, I am no fit 
wife for you, I could not devote myself. I can 
not give up my profession. My interests would 
clash with yours. My profession ” 

“Ah! but Love is better. Try to love me, 
my own prophetess. If devotion, if love can 
make happiness, mine must make you happy, 
dearest.” 

“ Is happiness the best thing, or duty, 
Vivian? ” 

“ Love is both. My life, my happiness, the 
child’s — all is in your hands.” 

In this strain the Immaculate pleaded long 
and beautifully, and one can not help thinking 
that it must have taken a heart of adamant or 
of a demon to resist such ideal love-making from 
such an ideal lover. Yet this fiendish young fe- 
male — to her lasting discredit, one thinks — ac- 
complished this dreadful feat. 

She had devoted her life, she said, to a serious 
study of one of the most noble arts and crafts; 
she was bound to pursued; her mother looked 
to her — after so much vexation and disappoint- 
ment — for help. “ Think,” she said, “ of the de- 
graded, stunted, wasted lives of innumerable 
middle-class women, who can not possibly marry, 
purely because there ~are not enough men to 
marry them. Think of the immense difficulties 


236 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


and obstacles that a few women have surmounted 
in the task of opening up new lines of usefulness 
to these women, and removing the stigma from 
female erudition and labour. Picture the great 
mass of hopeless, superfluous spinsters ‘ wither- 
ing on the stalk ’! Think of the complex tangle 
of misery and vice resulting from wretched mar- 
riages, from the union of men and women with- 
out one taste or aim in common. Dear Vivian, 
think of the wretched marriage from which you 
have just escaped, and consider if this is a time 
for women to snatch at personal happiness, when 
they have gone as far, suffered as much, and 
made others to suffer as much as I have. I can not, 
must not, dare not, give it up, my friend. Choose 
another wife. You are young. You are — at- 
tractive. You need a different kind of wife.” 

Poor, dear Immaculate; he knew it was use- 
less to say more; so he thought a great deal in- 
stead. 

The terrace was quite in shadow before they 
left it; the distant sea a cloud of softest rose, 
over which flitted a crimson sail; the scent of fig 
leaves, roses, and overblown myrtle on the para- 
pet mingled with mignonette and almondy clem- 
atis from below; the hushed air had a sparkle 
of coming frost in it; the purple-misted hilltops 
touched a pale, translucent sky; all the west was 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


237 


crimson and gold. Robins sang their cheery 
good night, grasshoppers chirped faintly, swal- 
lows clouded the flushed sky in twittering masses. 
Rejected and rejecter strolled amicably back to 
the house in the crimson glow, the rich light 
falling weirdly on their upturned faces, when 
those in the house saw them at the end of a long 
lane of hazy crimson. In this path of glory the 
two figures moved slowly, dark against the ruddy 
blaze that seemed to reveal them from its fiery 
heart. 


16 


CHAPTER XIX. 


“ For Love in secret works with Fate, 

To draw the veil from hidden worth.” 

Life is not long enough to chronicle all 
the Immaculate’s virtues; it is fatiguing to 
have to observe that he bore his refusal in 
the most perfect manner, dined with the 
family immediately after as if nothing had hap- 
pened, made himself as agreeable to all mem- 
bers, including the schoolboys home for the holi- 
days, as usual, and sang charmingly to Mrs. 
Langton’s accompaniment; while the stony- 
hearted fiend who had repulsed him, instead of 
tearing her hair, smiting her breast, and wearing 
sackcloth in remorse, selected her favourite 
frock, dressed her hair with the greatest art of 
which she was capable, and wore a string of pearls 
round her neck. What devilry might be hidden 
under these tactics no one knows. They were 
not wholly unnoticed by the Immaculate, who 
probably drew his own conclusions. 

“ Have you any objection to my marrying 

238 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


239 


your step-sister, Langton? ” he casually asked 
his host that night over an after-dinner cigar. 

“ Certainly not; nothing would give me great- 
er pleasure. But you know Amy takes herself and 
her physic very seriously. She is going to save 
society by the practise of medicine. And really 
she is a sensible woman, and probably knows best 
what she and the rest of them are fit for, as I 
often tell her mother, who can’t make her out. 
My wife backs her up through thick and thin; 
she goes solid for female emancipation; though, 
as Mrs. Langton rules despotically over every 
one in this house, I don’t know what she is to 
be emancipated from. But do you think Amy 
cares for you, Lester? She is simply immense 
about men.” 

“Your sister,” the Immaculate replied tran- 
quilly, “ has already done me the honour of re- 
fusing me twice. I hope I am not vain, Lang- 
ton, but I can’t help thinking these facts im- 
pressive,” he added with a smile of deadly 
sweetness.- 

They seldom met after this idyllic episode. 
Orice, in the course of a parliamentary inquiry, 
by commission, into the condition of East End 
needle-women, there was a public meeting in 
connection with it, several ladies being on the 
platform, as well as the member for Dalesby and 


240 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


his uncle, Lord Loughborough. The well-known 
face and figure of Mrs. St. Luke, M. D., appeared 
there amongst those of younger women. 

“ I say, Vif,” the uncle whispered to him, 
“ these women do the thing deuced well; they 
are so quiet and businesslike. But Mrs. St. Luke 
is a veteran speaker.” 

“After all, why should they not? Who has 
a cooler, clearer head than Aunt Evelyn? ” the 
nephew replied. Lady Evelyn was her brother’s 
right hand; she coached him, prompted him, 
suggested things to him, was worth, he some- 
times said — but not to her — ten secretaries. It 
was “ Evie, I want collieries got up,” or “ I want 
the whole history of Cyprus by to-morrow 
night.” “ Get me a precis of Derby’s adminis- 
trations,” or “ Evie, just get up Irish land 
tenures,” or “ What the dickens am I to say at 
this Conservative meeting? ” “ Let me have 

‘ Peace with Honour ’ in five epigrams, at once, 
my dear.” She never failed him; these things 
kept her young, and preserved her beauty. Her 
ungrateful brother sometimes asked what women 
could want with the franchise while they had 
such powers and opportunities as these? Be- 
sides, he would add, to clinch the matter, he had 
no franchise; why should women want what was 
denied to peers of the realm? This dreadful man 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


24I 


seldom met women upon platforms; but the 
question under present discussion almost excused 
their presence even to him and his fastidious 
nephew. 

Presently Mrs. St. Luke whispered some- 
thing to a young woman at her side, who rose 
and left the platform, returning shortly after with 
a bundle of papers. She was tall, she walked 
well, with an air of distinction, taking her pub- 
licity as a matter of course, without a grain of 
self-consciousness. 

“ Who is that young goddess? ” Lord 
Loughborough whispered, and his nephew pen- 
cilled a name printed on the programme — Miss 
A. Langton, M. D. The name was just then 
spoken by the chairman, who called on her to 
read her report, upon which, still keeping her 
eyes on her papers, she stood up in her place 
and began, without agitation, the usual “ Mr. 
Chairman,” etc. — read out her paper very calmly 
and sat down again. At all the “ Hear! hears! ” 
groans, “Shames!” and cheers she waited till 
the tumult subsided, and went steadily on. This 
little experience was very good for the Immacu- 
late's morals. 

“ After all,” his uncle said later, “ the Queen 
beats them all at public reading and speaking.” 

“ And us, too,” added the perfect knight. 


242 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


The exchange of a bow and a smile and an 
effort by the Immaculate to find her cloaks and 
cabs comprised the whole personal intercourse 
between these lovers; officially, the member 
for Dalesby had to question the accuracy and 
call for verification of some of Miss Langton’s 
facts, which was all done decently and in 
order. 

Who could imagine that, when this tall young 
woman was worried and overtired, oppressed by 
London fogs, depressed by the ills and sins and 
shames of poor suffering humanity, she was in 
the habit of calling up the memory of a sunny 
terrace on a still September afternoon — scent of 
fig-leaves, myrtle, mignonette, and roses; sound 
of twittering swallows, robins’ song, and grass- 
hoppers’ chirp; and with them a velvety voice 
passion-thrilled, dark eyes love-lighted, and 
words such as are spoken once, forgotten never? 
Or that the member for Dalesby, under similar 
circumstances, summoned the same scene to his 
reveries, substituting a woman’s voice, clear and 
pure, but deepened with feeling, and dark, spirit- 
ual blue eyes, lighted by holy fire, for his own? 
Something else filled his reveries — a hand-scarred 
by a dog’s bite, the face of a tiny, dark-eyed girl 
nestled beneath an intellectual face with sapphire 
eyes. Who could imagine that after such rev- 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


243 


eries earth to each seemed sweeter, heaven near- 
er than before?. 

It was in the short, befogged days of late No- 
vember that Amy Langton dined one night at 
Angel Road to meet the Australian brother, Al- 
gernon, whose wealth had proved to be largely 
based upon imagination. They met seldom; 
Amy was always immersed in business; Alger- 
non’s stay in England was only for a holiday. 
Julius was dining at home, too; the brothers and 
sister stayed chatting until midnight. Then 
Algernon and Amy drove away together, Julius 
being bound in another direction. The foggy 
day had given place to a clear, starry night with 
a sharp frost-bite in the air; it was pleasant to 
roll over the dry roads in the keen night, 
Algernon praising the Southern Cross and 
the brilliance of Australian skies, Amy vaunt- 
ing Italian moonlight. But what is that sud- 
den splendour in the north? An aurora bore- 
alis? No, for the leaping light is mingled with 
clouds of rolling smoke, the streets are red 
with it. 

“ It is a fire,” the brother said. “ Some- 
where by Cromwell Road, Amy; I must see that 
fire. You won’t mind dropping me and driving 
on alone, will you? ” 

Certainly not. Algernon alighted and 


244 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


melted into the crowd, a brown-bearded, brown- 
faced, athletic Australian, good at need. 

The streets were soon dark streams of rush- 
ing humanity, with here and there a swifter cen- 
tral current of strong horses, tossing eager heads, 
with jingle of harness and rattle of engines, amid 
a galaxy of brazen helmets glittering in the fitful 
lustre. The Australian, following the stream, 
was soon borne on the human surge to the source 
of the sinister splendour — a mansion, two man- 
sions, near Cromwell Road. The first was 
“well alight” before an engine arrived; it was 
practically gone, almost gutted, in half an hour; 
the houses on either side were burning. The 
lionlike roar of flame was emphasized by crack- 
ing timber, crashing masonry, amid popping, like 
single shots, human cries, orders, the steady 
thud, thud of engines and hiss of rushing water. 
Engine after engine clattered up, a moving splen- 
dour of brazen helmets flashed here and there and 
everywhere, from roof to pavement; axes glit- 
tered in the flame as this and that threatening 
source of peril was hacked away, ladders shot 
up, the fire-escape did duty; buckets and hose 
rained till the streets ran red with flame-reflect- 
ing water and the surging crowd were swept 
back by the streams shot upon them. 

Sometimes a groan rolled heavily over the 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 245 

crowd when inmates or firemen were seen in 
danger, then a cheer thundered up when the dan- 
ger passed. 

The fire was eating its savage way through 
Lord Loughborough’s house, next to that in 
which the fire began. The lower stairs were 
gone. Some women servants and children 
asleep on the third floor had been roused 
on the first cry of fire and taken out safely, but 
a boy of seven was missing. The fire-escape was 
planted against the house, a fireman climbed up, 
and returned empty-handed. 

“ Let me go, fireman. I know he is there! ” 
cried a young man in evening dress, pushing the 
man aside and springing up the ladder, which 
was now swathed in smoke. He disappeared 
through a third-floor window; several seconds 
elapsed, during which the burning second floor 
gave way with a crash, a volume of flame shot up 
above it, the outer wall yielded, and, after tottering 
a minute, crashed in, engulfing the fire-escape with 
it, just as the young man reappeared, carrying 
something white, and greeted by a loud roar from 
the raging fire and a deep, low groan from the 
crowd. The window at which the young man 
appeared with his burden was next the house 
corner, which the fire had not yet reached, 
though it was advancing with every second. The 


246 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


corner stood, like a tottering tower shot from a 
chasm of raging fire, that leapt high above it and 
poured sparks and flaming brands upon it. The 
young man was out on the balcony in front of 
the window; he was seen to tie his burden — poor 
little distraught Harry Lester, whom he. found 
crouched in a corner, numb and idiotic with ter- 
ror — to a sheet, which he let down, shouting for 
a mattress to break the fall. A mattress was 
held by many willing hands; the child was 
dropped and caught; the young man fell back, 
half hanging over the balcony and half propped 
by the house wall. “ Jump! ” they shouted from 
below; but he neither moved nor answered; he 
had been struck by a piece of charred wood that 
was carried up by the fire-draught like a scrap 
of paper and dropped. 

“A ladder! A rope! The fire-escape! ” 
cried confused voices. The fire had licked up 
that part of the balcony that was over the flames; 
the metal rails hung down, twisted like a wisp 
of straw. 

“ Throw up a rope in a block,” one of the 
brigade in command ordered. It was done; the 
rope caught and ran down; but the man was 
motionless and helpless. The fire crept nearer; 
the corner tottered. 

“ Will no one fetch him? ” — “ Is he dead? ” — 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


2 4 ; 


“ Will the rope bear? ” cried many voices. Hose 
were directed in many streams on the doomed 
corner, the crowd was scourged back by the hose 
in readiness for the expected crash, when, with 
a wild cry of “ For him or with him! ” a young 
woman in short skirts, the upper one torn off, 
dashed through hose-streams, policemen, and 
firemen, caught the rope, swarmed up it like a 
cat, and reached the tottering balcony in a few 
seconds. Catching the rope up, she passed it 
round the man’s body, bound it firmly, and tried 
to lift him over. He fell, helpless but not sense- 
less, into her arms, just able to second her efforts 
by throwing his weight here and there; she got 
him over without a jerk; the rails gave and bent 
in the strain, flames leapt over them, quenched 
again and again by the water. “ Now unclasp 
me,” she said to the dazed, exhausted man, who 
obeyed, swung free with a cry of agony, and 
then sank swooning, as she paid the rope out 
from her torn hands, the top rails escaping the 
strain, as she leant back against the wall, bracing 
her feet against the bottom rail. Many willing 
arms supported the mattress that caught the 
injured man; the boom of a mighty cheer rolled 
round as he was safely received and quickly borne 
off, just as a gust of flame parted the rope that 
lowered him and a volume of smoke whirled 


248 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


round the corner, concealing the young woman 
in its black heart. Silence of horror fell upon 
those below; a big, brown-bearded man, who had 
been lending a useful hand, shouted in a loud, 
hoarse voice, “ Jump, Amy, jump, for the love 
of Heaven! ” 

Area spikes, hot and hissing from the water 
poured on them, were under the mattress held 
for the other two, and this had been hurried 
away with the injured man upon it; the sheet 
that lowered the child was there, black and wet, 
scarcely discernible. It was quickly snatched by 
firemen, held aloft, and firmly supported in time 
to catch the girl, who saw, as the smoke eddied 
away from her, that there was no danger of strik- 
ing the man she had rescued. Then she jumped, 
was caught by the edge of the sheet, bounded 
up, turned over in the air, and fell to the ground, 
knocking a fireman down under her. By the 
time she struck the fireman in her fall, all behind 
was one mass of flame, the corner of the house 
gone. From the time the rope was thrown 
over the balcony rail to the man’s complete res- 
cue, five minutes; to Amy’s fall, seven. 

Each was burnt and bruised, but the poor, 
brave Immaculate had a broken leg, while the 
blow on his head only stunned him. Julius helped 
to set the limb and waged a lifelong war with 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


2 49 


his sister upon the causes that left a slight lame- 
ness behind, so beautifully managed by the Im- 
maculate, that it was converted to a grace, lend- 
ing a new distinction to his carriage. Julius 
managed his sister’s sprained ankle and serious 
burns better, so that nothing beyond a scar or 
two remained in after life. The lovers wrote and 
heard of each other, but did not meet until both 
had recovered. 

“ You must marry me now, dearest,” the Im- 
maculate said on that august occasion, with out- 
stretched arms. “ I am your Frankenstein. 
You gave me life; I demand happiness.” 

“ But honour and duty come first. I can not 
give up my calling. As for love ” 

“ My brave, beautiful prophetess, when I saw 
your face through the flames — ‘ An angel yet — 
yet — a woman’ ” — can we blame our own 
prudent, perfect knight if his voice failed him 
here and tears sprang unbidden? — “Amy, I am 
not the hide-bound, prejudiced ass I was. Love 
has taught me better; a woman’s love, a 
woman’s heroism. Dear, I will never hinder you, 
only give me the privilege of helping.” 

“ Oh! but I am not the wife you need — not 
the helpmate,” she faltered. 

“ Just the wife, no other. As for obedience 
and helping, why not obey and help each other? ” 


250 


SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS. 


“ My own dear Bayard,” she murmured hum- 
bly, as she glided into his tenderly, passionate 
embrace; “my peerless, perfect knight!” 

If the marriage proved a happy one, if the 
Immaculate became a statesman, lawyer, or scrib- 
bler of renown, if his virtues, cleared and settled 
by the ferment of youth, mellowed with years, 
if he and Amy became less sure of their own 
opinions, more tolerant of other people’s, of the 
manner in which he helped her to reconcile her 
wifely and professional duties, and to further the 
improvement of her sex — no authentic record 
has as yet been found — readers are thus at liberty 
to draw their own conclusions. 


THE END. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY’S PUBLICATIONS. 


44 The Story of the Year.” 


HALL CAINE’S NEW NOVEL. 



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etc. 


“ Most admirably done. . . . We read fascinated, and fully believing every word 
we read. . . . The book has deeply interested us, and even thrilled us more than 
once.” — London Daily Chronicle. 

“ A wildly fantastic story, thrilling and impressive. . . . Has an air of vivid reality, 
. . . of bold conception and vigorous treatment. . . . A very noteworthy novelette.”— - 
London Times. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
























